The Last Minute Christmas Rush

Since Black Friday, every evening (well, every evening that I've bothered to waste my time watching the news) I've heard about the last minute Christmas shoppers and how they're clogging the stores. I have yet to experience said rush. Part of the reason is, I usually don't Christmas shop for Hunny Bunny or the "Varmints 3" during the Christmas season. This year's been no exception:

This past summer Hunny Bunny and I bought ourselves a new mattress and bed -- both of which should last 20+ years -- due to the great expense, we decided when we purchased them not to exchange gifts. But then last week I found a pair of electrical wire strippers at Home Depot that I really liked and would make work faster, easier, and much safer. So I purchased them. Then Hunny Bunny's CD/Tape player died this month... actually, all of the tape players in the house died simultaneously. So she purchased a Radio/CD/Tape player combo for herself this week. This morning we decided that since we "aren't exchanging gifts," those would be our Christmas presents to each other. Except, the DVD/VHS player died a few months back, and if we want to make DVDs of the kids' home videos for the grandparents, we're going to have to buy ourselves one more present.

I haven't shopped for the Varmints 3 because this summer we found an amazing yard sale. A divorced woman with 2 small boys was cleaning out the toys her boys didn't play with anymore. She bundled all of their Thomas the Train stuff together and put a $100 price tag on it. No one wanted to spend $100 dollars at a yard sale, so when we pulled up 10 minutes before she was going to close, it was still there. Hunny Bunny looked at the stuff and called me over. I looked at the stuff, left the lady a deposit, and quickly returned with the rest of the $100. There was somewhere between $700 and $1,000 dollars worth of Thomas the Train stuff in there! So the boys are better than "set" for this Christmas -- they're "loaded." I'm not sure what Anna's going to get, but I'm not a great shopper and have left that to Hunny Bunny. (Anna will play with the trains too, but she likes "girly-" "dolly-" and "pink-stuff" more than trains and cars.)

The 2nd reason I've yet to experience the "last minute Christmas rush" is due to the stores I've chosen to frequent. Home Depot, Grifs (the cow feed store), Imperial (the electrical supply store), and Davie Plumbing generally don't have much "Christmas rush" in them.

I think if more American women did their Christmas shopping at stores like these, American men would receive much better Christmas presents (even the shirts, pants, and gloves in Home Depot are not only practical, but also made for working), and the women would spend much less time waiting in line.