Courageous Joy

Christmas Shopping

The inevitable was bound to happen....I must deal with the whole Christmas shopping thing. ::snort::

It's been our tradition for years for me to take each child out for a day of shopping. We would get either breakfast or lunch and they'd get all their shopping done. This actually is quicker....I had 7 days of shopping instead of who knows how many....I also avoided store security who suspected a group of kids with strange lumps under their shirts and such...

Last year, we noted it was harder to pull this off with a new baby and the girls not at home. We managed. Mike watched the baby and littles on his days off. This year, I have been trying to do shopping all together. We've reached a point....even though we tried.... where I'm going to have to take each child out alone....and I think Josiah is going to have to take them all out if I hope to have a gift. LOL

I had a couple of spare hours today and headed out with Arielle. Stacia was sleeping. Iwas assured they could handle it. We had just finished dinner, when I got the "call". Stacia needed me home - she needed her diaper changed. ::snort:: Guess we'd forgotten about that. Arielle had finished her shopping and we were heading home anyway.

We finished a week of TOG by yesterday.....so instead of trying to do another, I think we will go shopping tomorrow...maybe I can even take one child in the a.m. and one child in the p.m.?????

Now THIS is interesting. Arielle wanted to eat at Burger King. The lady in there LOVES us and was so excited to see us again - though she wanted to know what I did with the other children. She wanted to know where Chaplain has been too. LOL They have an AAFES radio station that plays on base...there we were eating when "Blue Christmas" came on. I was doing so good and feeling so proud of myself for actually going SHOPPING!!!! Then THAT! It was followed by "I'll be home for Christmas".....now don't you think they would KNOW better than playing those songs on base when so many are deployed???? I teared up, but at least I was in a spot where everyone KNEW what the problem was....::snort:: Arielle said, "Is blue a bad color, Mom?" ::snort:: I explained to her and then we got the "call"; all in all it was fairly funny.