It's Shopping Time!

I feel like we haven’t been writing as much on this thing lately, so I will tell you what I have been thinking about even if it isn’t exciting. And yes, I do remember that we still have some of the redone rooms to show- I just keep forgetting to take pictures of them. I will get to it, someday. Anyway….

It is about that time of year again- Christmas shopping time! But I don’t mean ‘Day after Thanksgiving’ shopping. For the third year in a row, Nick and I have a goal to have all Christmas gifts purchased prior to Thanksgiving (more my goal that he has adopted). Some people may think that is weird (yes we do get odd looks when we start asking for lists in October), but if you think about it, it really makes sense and allows us to enjoy the holiday season MUCH more. After working in retail (at the mall) for three holiday seasons, I see nothing fun about shopping with the crowds. And do you really save that much money to make up for the stress of driving in the city with people who have no idea where they are going, as well as trying finding somewhere to park at the malls and Target?

So, our tradition is to take the day BEFORE Thanksgiving off and hit the stores in search of perfect gifts for everyone. Yes, we are boring and have people make lists so we don’t have to search for ideas of what to get them, but it makes it so much easier to pick up gifts and we know they will use them.

Wednesday it is, I have already started charting out our plan for the day, and with the gifts we have already found we should be on our way to having Christmas shopping done by Wednesday night! I will admit the first year we did this Nick was a little skeptical (basically he hadn’t decided what to get everyone in advance), but now he loves it!

Then on the day after Thanksgiving we can sit down, put in Elf and wrap the presents. The rest of the season we can just enjoy the beautiful decorations and relax. I will admit that we may hit a store or two on the day after Thanksgiving, but more for fun and not because we have to get something (Ace Hardware usually has some really nice deals that day and the store is hardly busy here in Des Moines.)

Off topic a little- I must say I am the luckiest wife around because Nick doesn’t complain about shopping at all! I don’t think it is his favorite thing to do, but he doesn’t complain. It also helps that on this shopping day we always make a trip downtown for lunch at South Union- something we don’t get to do very often since we work in West Des Moines. Thanks for being such a great shopping partner Nick!