‘Tis the Season

Don’t you love people who have their tree up and presents wrapped and under the tree before December 1st?

For the rest of us, who have the Christmas Season seemingly sneak up on us (and judging by the traffic increase on the roads and in the stores on the days leading up to Christmas, there’s a LOT of us), suddenly it’s game on. The realization hits you of all the things you have to get done in the short amount of time that you have left, so you head out.

The first thing is now realizing you’ve left things too late to be able to beat the traffic.  The parking lots are FULL!

This leads you to circling around and around the parking lot looking for a spot, and just as one opens up in the next row, you floor it to get around the corner and quickly to the vacant spot, only to see another car pull in just as you round the corner.  Then, in desperation, you start following people coming out of the stores who have arms full of shopping bags.  You follow along slowly waiting for them to lead you to the spot where you can put on your signal on and wait for them to load up and depart.  They keep walking and walking.  All the way to the end of the parking lot, only to quickly open the trunk, throw their parcels in, close the trunk and head back toward the store.  Finally, you come across a spot.  It’s a couple of kilometers away from the stores (this is why there are so many shoe stores in the mall), you finally arrive inside the stores only to be greeted by someone trying to sell you a credit card plan.

You wait in the lineups, pay the big price (because you missed the sales back in November when you really should have been out), you get everything home, wrapped, and put under the tree and then Christmas morning when they open it up, they say…”You shouldn’t have”…