Christmas shopping

[cineater]

Oh fuck, Amazon employees are striking!  Good timing on their part but holy shit.  I'm just waiting for cyber Monday and I hit the click buy button on the rest of my gifts.

I've made the mistake of buying large gifts this year.  My SIL is going to have to come pick up my gifts in his truck because there is no way I can get these in my little car.     One of them was so heavy I barely got it in the house.  No idea how I'm going to wrap that.

[cineater]

Oh this is cool.  Fritz's, famous for root beer, has put out a Shirley Temple drink for the holidays, ginger ale and red grenadine if they made it right.  Waiting for it to cool before I taste it.   A drink my dad use to get me in the bowling alley bar.  Good stuff.   

[cineater]

Done with cyber Monday.  Really didn't have to wait for that.  The deals have been up for a while now.  Down to 4 people and a dog. 

[cineater]

I hope that went through.  The website timed out after I hit the pay button but the list showed it had been purchased.  I'll check my credit card later.  Pretty excited about that gift.  It's for a foster child.  He wanted led strip lights for his bedroom.  I'm all about lights on wires.  Reminds me of Disneyland. 

They do Little Wishes for foster kids.  3400 Christmas gift requests left on the list.  Closer to Christmas all those wishes get filled.  The community really comes through for those kids.

[cineater]

I remember those days.  In addition to the 30 some odd kids I supervised in foster care placements, I had 68 kids placed in a children's psychiatric hospital to get Christmas presents for.  Judy supplied 3 gifts for each of those kids a few days before Christmas, Dave brought the hospital van and picked them up.  And then we wrapped!  The doctors supplied the wrapping supplies and pizza.  The staff came in early for shift or stayed late.  We did it all at one time and it took hours.  Word spread through the hospital and funny how those kids calmed their asses down when they knew the gifts were there.     One year I swear everybody got boomboxes.  Never forget the look on those kids faces when they knew they hadn't been forgotten at Christmas.

[poorlakers]

Thanks for posting! Enjoy reading

[cineater]

Thanks for posting! Enjoy reading

Hey that Shirley Temple from Fritz's, not bad but not great.  They don't quiet have down ginger ale.  They do have root beer perfected just take a couple of friends with you if you order a root beer float at their store.  One of them would take you forever to eat.

[cineater]

Dropped by Kohl's to return something from Amazon.  I did it wrong.  Something I have to do online before I can return it.  Wow, out of all the shit I've brought through Amazon over the years, I've never returned anything.  

And just when you think you're done shopping, the grand daughter gets a new bed.  And I can't really get her new bedding without getting her brother some too.  I'm going to be wrapping for a week.  And it's all big packages.    Did I mention I like big Christmases?

And I walked out of Kohl's with $30 Kohl's cash and my 30 percent coupon still good.  It's a viscous cycle with them.   

[cineater]

Amazon keeps sending me emails they are delivering my stuff early.  That's great but I like to be home when they do that.  And I have a whole bag of Christmas chocolate sitting here that if I don't pass it out to them, I'm going to eat!     I can tell you, Amazon drivers love chocolate.

[cineater]

If I had known.  It was bad enough when she called me Friday to remind me we had a concert to attend Monday morning.  I was clueless.  Says she told me about it back in March.  We've talked since then, a lot, but lately mostly about what we were doing Monday night!  Okay, she calls me tonight.  No to my casual, festive outfit, it's formal attire and I have to wear makeup.  Er, I don't know where any of that shit is.  I have one outfit, I've worn it several times to this event, think I can find it but I'm going to have to borrow some mascara.  My girl side is in panic mode.  My retired ass didn't get up until 11:30 today and now I have to get up at 6 to be to her place on time.  And I have to drive.  Did I mention my car is loaded with donations to the food pantry that we collected at the party Friday night during the party I was involved in throwing?  We're going to have to drop that off on our way back.  Yes, I know we have to do lunch with the group afterwards, that you have to get home to make the chili for that evening and I have amazon coming but I had to reschedule a doctor appointment to make this, we're going to make it work.

And this is why I started shopping months ago.   

[cineater]

The last of the orders, delivered by 3 different services came in today.  I'm ready to start wrapping!  I have a couple more deliveries going to people that show up Thursday.  Still working with the kids to find the comforters they want but otherwise I'm done.  Wrapping all this stuff will keep me from buying more.   

[cineater]

My friend got her gift from me today.  She can't open it until Christmas.  I told her it snaps, crackles and pops, that's normal.  I didn't tell her it doesn't do that until after she opens it.   

[cineater]

7 hours later and I still have a third of the gifts I bought left to wrap.  And I've been back on Amazon for a couple of last minute things that are coming in next week.  I've got one birthday and one Christmas present left to get.  And then mom calls.  She needs me to pick up a few things for my sister.   

[cineater]

Hold on mom.  You're buying for 11 people, 2 gifts a piece.  That's no where near 90 packages you wrapped.  What did she do?  I'm thinking got the math wrong but I did introduce her to amazon lists.   

I'm done shopping, Christmas and 3 birthdays.  And I'm up to 4 stuffed animals.    Although the 4th is a weighted, stuffed animal, wasn't my idea.  Middle school is stressful.  Hang on kid, it gets better in the 8th grade.

[cineater]

Oh what the fuck?  My sister just texted and asked if I could get this little something my mother just thought of.  Okay but it's coming from Santa!

[cineater]

A friend of mine has been growing his beard all year so he could play Santa.  Wants to visit kids in hospitals.  He does that next year, I won't have to go shopping for toys.  I have a shit load of Bennie Babies he can pass out!  Forever on a mission to get rid of those. 

[cineater]

There's just something about all these blow up Christmas decorations that make your yard look like shit during the day.  They are all collapsed in piles in your yard and people have bought way too many of those.  We need snow to hide those but how much snow can you pile on top of them before they won't inflate?  Daylight and Christmas just don't go well together.

[cineater]

The gifts are on the move!  The birthday presents are out of here tonight.  Christmas gifts go out tomorrow.  We're turning bitterly cold at the end of the week and staying that way for Christmas.  It will just be easier to deal with bringing in the food.  And it's going to make my daughter happy to be able to play with her packages a few days.  The truck already came and picked up the gifts too big to fit in my car.  How can he think that box is a microwave?     For one thing, he doesn't need a microwave, it's too light for that and it makes a noise like something on his list.  He's a horrible guesser.

Probably obvious I like a big Christmas.     My SIL is still trying to adjust.  He gets real quiet.  His family didn't do gifts and celebrations.  He needs to let that go, we can't change that.  You're one of us now and this is how we do it. 

[cineater]

Once those gifts are wrapped, I'm just as surprised what's that gift is.     My general goal is that the gift is too pretty to open.  I'm not real good at it but I do get a pause and a comment.  I hate stick on bows but I do slap one of them on some of the packages.  Hours of wrapping and I just want to get done.   

[cineater]

Did everybody get the 75% off sale for Bath and Body Works starts Monday?     We're texting each other.  Stocking up for next year.  Never ends.