Dare I say it......

I think I’m done. Yep, I think I have finished my shopping. All I need to get is wrapping paper and ribbon and, of course, the food for our Christmas feast. I even have the gifts for our ‘Secret Santa” exchange at work. And I remembered to order more ink for my printer so I can print out the pictures I will take this Christmas...…got a rebate on that too. Of course…I don’t have them in hand……but they are all ordered and confirmed and supposedly on their way. I received two boxes today already and I just ordered from that store on Sunday. I managed to get free shipping from every place except one and that was only $5.99 so I don’t feel bad at all. I saved twice that much in gas.

I can’t say enough about online ordering. I’ve been doing it for years now and have found the best buys and received everything in time and in good condition. Of course you can’t wait until the day before Christmas Eve to order and expect to receive it in time. No battling the crowds, the heavy traffic…..no looking for a parking spot and waiting in lines to cash out and then having to walk through snow to my car and unload everything. No worrying about getting mugged on my way to the car. This is just too easy. I may even……shudder….begin to like shopping again. I did like it once….when I was young and had plenty of energy and no children to lug around. Add the fact that I did it all in my jammies while sipping on a cup of coffee or a mixed drink….depending on the time of day it was…to the above attributes and this is just about a win-win situation here. I guess I am, indeed, a walking advertisement.

But I have been in the trenches. Oh yes I have. Stood in lines until I thought my back would break, had rude people try and take cuts in front of me….they were lucky they lived after THAT encounter. I may be short and mild looking…but I’m like a lioness protecting her cubs when it comes to taking cuts in front of me. Had people hit my heels with their shopping carts, over and over…...even had people take stuff out of my cart when I wasn’t looking when I found a good deal on something and there were no more left. Oh yes….shoppers are an evil bunch…ruthless I tell you.

The best time I ever had shopping was when I went with a girlfriend who was in a wheelchair because of knee surgery. Her guyfriend had driven us there, dropped us off and parked the vehicle so we didn’t have to walk far. We were (she and I) half in the bag from an earlier Christmas party and we had so much fun that time. I guess it was because we just really didn’t care if we found stuff or not and because of that, we had pretty good luck. The only bad thing was that we had to wait in line for over an hour. She almost fainted (for real) because the store was so hot. She had taken off every article of clothing she could take off without getting in trouble and she still got overheated. It was memorable and it was fun. When I got into their van, I went to sit down and sat between the captain chair seats in the back and landed on the floor on my butt. We all laughed like fools and then went out for breakfast to sober up. We were laughing so hard we even had all the waitresses laughing. Ahhhh…the good old days……..such good memories. I'm so lucky.