The Most Wonderful Time

Yep, it's here.  The Christmas Season.  Officially.

I spent the wee hours of my morning on Friday here:

where I ran into a lot of people I know... happy, but with bloodshot eyes.  Walmart was the best of the morning.  After pleasantly finding the items I had come for PLUS a few more, we found the checkout lines to be reasonable.  Then we went home for a two-hour break (I snoozed) before heading off to Kohls.  

That's when things got ugly.  It was a cold morning - I think about 16 degrees.  We waited in the car until we saw the line of people start streaming into the building.  We sauntered the mile up to the doors, and waited for the line to finish rushing in.  A lady somewhere in the line started screaming.  Something about the back of the line. She continued with the ruckus all the way into the store.  Two sets of doors were open, and the line was only using one.  I decided that it was ridiculous to just stand there, in the cold, with two perfectly good unlocked doors that weren't being used, so I headed in.  Seriously, I would have waited until the line was in HAD they been using all available open doors.  But they weren't.  

I know, I know... I'm justifying.  I got my due reward.  I waited in a check-out line for an hour and a half, then got sent to the "next available line" as the cashier was "finishing up" a sale, only to discover that she wasn't NEAR finishing up with some lady that purchased enough goods to get $150 in Kohls Cash back.  You do the math.  Some lady that had her maybe-11-year-old daughter with her, and NO CART.  Once the cashier had finally "finished," they had to figure out how to move her boatload of stuff out of the way.  The process took a good 15 minutes.  I watched as at least a dozen people, who had been behind me in line, checked out and left the store.

Shilo, eager to pull her first all-nighter, had spent the morning with me.  She now says she will never have the need to attend the Black Friday madness again.  She's done.  I think I'm done too.

We rolled into bed around 5:30.

After about 4 hours of sleep, I dug into this:

which still isn't finished.  Maybe tomorrow.

Today we headed here:

The good news:  our Christmas shopping is done.  Since Santa is helping with our upcoming trip to Mexico, we gave the kids a small budget for gifts from Bill and me.  They each selected the one thing they would like the most (within the small budget), and the purchases have been made.  

All I need to do is wrap.

I really do love this time of year, despite the craziness.  I wish only the best to the screaming lady.  I hope she got all the stuff she needed, without altercation, and that she got in a fast check-out line.  

I am going to try to be better.  To not let my natural-man-get-out-of-the-cold-nobody's-using-the-doors-anyway get the best of me.  I want to exude the spirit of Christmas, spread the cheer of the season, and share the light of Christ.