The weekend after Thanksgiving, Mac set out to put up our Christmas lights. We had two strands of lights that didn't survive the off-season, so when it came to decorate the tree, I didn't have enough lights. I headed off to Fred Meyer to get some more. Freddy's had an impressive Christmas set up, dedicating two aisles just to lights. "Perfect," I thought and I began my search for the standard 100 count strings of mini-white lights. Up and down the aisles I went, passing by the strands of all red, all green, even all blue and all orange lights. I found plenty of icicle lights, bobble lights, chili pepper lights, and extra large lights, but no white ones.
I headed down the street to Safeway where there were only a few choices - all colored. So back past Fred Meyer's and off to A-boy. There I found the the most technologically advanced light selection - fiber optics, ultra-mini's, and specialty twinkling patterns in addition to icicle lights but still not what I was looking for. Exasperated, I bought a strand of ultra-mini lights and left. Not only did I not get what I wanted, I paid $5.99 which further annoyed me as I got all my light strands for $1.99 last year (perhaps why the life-span was short).
Tonight we did our Christmas grocery shopping for Thursday's dinner gathering. I am making a peppermint cheesecake for dessert with a crushed candy cane topping, so of course, I need candy canes. Off to the Christmas section. There I found boxes and boxes of candy canes at $.99/dozen. The problem of course, was that they didn't have peppermint! There were oodles of rootbeer, tooty-fruity, and cinnamon candy canes, even Starburst and Jolly Rancher candy canes. The only box of peppermint that I could find was sugar-free. So I picked out a few of the big, thick, individually sold (and more expensive) single candy canes, but I didn't really want big, thick candy canes.
Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to bask in the glow of chili pepper lights while sucking on butterscotch candy canes. I want to celebrate Christmas with white lights and peppermint! Is that too much to ask??
Fortunately, Santa's elves were looking out for me tonight. Heading to the check-out line, I spied a box of candy canes on the floor, under the gum rack. Deftly swooping down to check it out, I was rewarded with a box of peppermint candy canes! I felt pretty triumphant to find the only box of regular candycanes in the whole store - in fact, i was downright merry!
Peppermint cheesecake?!! Oh my! You shouldn't have told me! I may have to fast between now and then to save room for dessert! Yum!
ReplyDeleteI've had it with Christmas shopping too! The main reason is this: Andrew's family decided to draw names this year. Great idea! We got Andrew's sister, Holly, and cousin, Richard. We received their wish lists, purchased the gifts, wrapped them, and stood in line at the post office with plenty of time to get them to Boston and New York in time for the big day. Then, we hear that Andrew's mom is bringing gifts for us when she visits on the 27th, even though she didn't draw our names. Next, we received a box of goodies from his Grammy, even though she didn't draw our names. And the final straw, we got a gift card to Border's from his aunt and uncle, you guessed it, even though they didn't draw our names! What's the point of drawing names when you don't stick to the "rules"! So, yesterday, on the final day to get gifts sent and delivered on time by the USPS, Henry and I stood outside the post office at the end of a very long line, to send more gifts to relatives whose names we did not draw.
The best Christmas ever was the one when we resigned from gift exchanging altogether, instead giving the money we would have spent to the Oregon Food Bank. We may have to go back to that next year!