Christmas this year was a little bit different, but not too much. We still had lots of presents, food, and fellowship but the way I went about it was a little different
Ṫhe pandemic difference this year was that I nearly wore out my credit card ordering almost everything on my list of almost three dozen friends and family from that very popular, non-brick and mortar store, Amazon. It's just too dang easy to fulfill my bad impulse shopping habit when, with just one click, I can have something bought before I even realize what I've done. Bonus – I was able to do it all from my very comfortable recliner. No annoying crowds, no throwing elbows to get to the last bargain, no being run over by a shopping cart. Those women get mad when I do that. Ha Ha! Just kidding. Maybe.
Amazon and the evil little genius devils who thought up this system are a bane on my credit card. (I was going to say checkbook, but I rarely use it anymore.)
The ones in charge of my Discover card got so suspicious of all the great stuff I was ordering, they took to sending me messages every stinkin' time I made a purchase. Geez, guys, I appreciate your diligence watching over my account, but it gets a little embarrassing when you send me a text like every five minutes with an alert.
It didn't stop me from shopping, mind you. I just put my phone on silent until I was finished, approximately $1,000 later. And if David is reading this, I'm kidding about the amount. (Not.)
Anyway, I managed to procure approximately 90 percent of my present obligations on this particular website. I ordered so much, I'm sure the poor USPS, UPS, and FedEx drivers were starting to dread the daily trips to our house.
Imagine my surprise when we ordered a new bed frame for our guest bedroom and ended up with two. Two! One arrived, then two days later another one was dropped on our doorstep. I had received notification of the second delivery but I thought it was a missent email. After all, we needed only one.
I immediately rushed to my computer, pulled up my Amazon account, and checked to see if I had accidentally ordered more than one. Nope. Not my fault, so I checked to make sure we hadn't been charged for the second bed. Nope.
Still scratching my head over that little faux pas, a few days later another package arrived containing not one, but two, art sets. Did the shipping people goof again? I opened up my account, and what do you know? I had somehow managed to order two. It worked out well in the end since we have two granddaughters who both love to draw, so that turned out to be serendipitous for me.
I finally learned my lesson involving being more aware of how many identical products I was ordering when I received not one, not two, not even three but SIX tiny tools I had intended to give to two men on my very extensive Christmas list. My bad. They should have known that nobody would deliberately order six of this particular item. I managed to pawn off five of them to various guys on my list, but I'm still stuck with one. I have no use for it since I don't even know what the heck it's used for. I just thought it looked unique. (And inexpensive.) Bad shopper. Bad, bad shopper.
The other change we made this year was, instead of David and I buying and preparing all the food, we managed to get the kids to cook part of the meal and bring it over. This started last year when I was sick, and they had to prepare everything, so now that I've got them convinced that this is the way to go, I'm not willing to let it go anytime soon. I've enjoyed having less work and stress.
The granddaughters are old enough that they are now willing to come over and help prepare everything and let me tell you, I have a ball. It's so much more fun this way.
So my lesson for this year is, pandemic or no, I vow that I will not click 'buy now' until I have checked to make sure how many of one item I have in my virtual shopping cart.
I don't know when I'm going to let David know I have a new Ninja blender hidden in my office that was a complete impulse buy. Hey, who can resist a blender that can make smoothies and cook soup too? Apparently, I can't.
I'll end by wishing everyone a Happy New Year! May it be better than 2020.