Christmas Crunch

Coming up this afternoon, we’ll have some tips for you on finding a parking spot at the stores, because you know at some point you’re going to wind up there this week.

Every year, I tell myself I’m not going to wait until the last minute to start Christmas shopping, and every year things come up, you get busy, you try to get out there but before you know it we have run into the Christmas crunch and you get caught up in that last minute shopping frenzy.  That last week before Christmas hitting the stores around town and at each place you have to circle around the parking lot driving up and down the aisles of the shopping centre and just as you see a spot open up in the next row over, by the time you get there someone is just nicely pulling in, and the circling continues.

Sometimes you have no choice but to stalk some of the people who coming out of the stores are loaded up with shopping bags and then slowly follow them to back to their car and wait with signals flashing while they load their car and take forever to finally back out.  Eventually you are parked and now must walk approximately 4 km’s to the stores from the only space you could find.  This is why they have so many shoe stores in the mall.

Once you make the entrance into the mall you will immediately be stopped by someone asking you to fill out a questionnaire for a credit card application.  Moving on you jostle with the crowds, look endlessly for just the right thing you came for, stand in a long line to pay the big price because you missed the sales at the beginning of the season.

You take it home, get it wrapped, put it under the tree to be opened on Christmas morning and the person says “Aww, you shouldn’t have”.

Next year, I’ll make sure not to end up running around at the last minute.