With the Holidays, it means lots of shopping. And for me to enjoy shopping I have to be in the right mood for it. I feel like I'm on shopping overload lately, way too much for my own good! Plus to enjoy shopping I have to enjoy what I'm shopping for. I have to say men and boys are not enjoyable to shop for. They do not like clothes or shoes or perfume or dolls or anything girly (thank goodness on that one!). So really it is no wonder I save the guys for the end of my list.
Another particularly difficult person/people to shop for are my inlaws/parents. I never know for sure what to get for them and they have such different interests than me. I have, in years past, told Laren that is his job but he highly dislikes the chore also! I guess if money were not a factor I would have no problem outfitting everyone in my life with everything they want.
This morning I was out shopping for Christmas lights. I hate having to spend dollar after dollar on thing after thing this time of year. And anyone who truly knows me would attest that I dislike spending anytime of year. But this is our first Christmas in this house and we have more than enough mini white lights, but not enough of the colors. I'm copying Jenny and Angie's idea and going with the red and white lights for our house, above the icicle lights. And with decorating for the holidays, I have found if I do not get what I need right away it's gone!
That is what happened with the strings of red and white lights I wanted. I went to both Walmart and Target and they were all sold out! So this morning, I had a few other things I needed to get (including more stickers for my potty training little guy) so I tried another Walmart and between that and Hobby Lobby I was able to get what I was looking for.
Our lights on our house the way we have them now, without any red.
ETA: We can't put lights on the top part of our roof because we have a ceramic tile roof and those babies break without much effort. So we are left to lighting only the bottom half of our house. Laren's kind of glad it worked out that way! ;)
And because I was out and it was on the way home I had to stop at Costco, a real quick stop so I could be on time to pick Rilyn up from Kindergarten. It was slow getting out of there but I made it in time to get Rilyn by the skin of my teeth. I will be so glad when we get a break from half day Kindergarten and preschool. I just get Rilyn there and I'm back already to pick her up!!
And along with the shopping comes something worse: returns. I hate returns. I hate having to dig through all my receipts to find just the right one. I hate that I have to drive 20 minutes to return an item that cost $3.99. But who wants to just throw the money away on something you can't use, like the wrong size of glue sticks for your glue gun? You can't even gift those! LOL ;)
So now I have my lights, 2 strings of red and 2 strings of white but now I have the extra strings of red I got just in case and the wrong size glue sticks, some ribbon that I found something I like better at a different store and a few other miscellaneous items to return to about 4 different stores.
9 comments:
I failed to mention what a pain it was to switch the bulbs for those lights. I hope it works out for you guys! They are pretty cool once you finish, but it's a lot of work. I got mine all at Hobby Lobby when they were on sale. Returns are the absolute worse! And my inlaws are terrible to shop for, that is why I now do giftcards--no returns :)
Wow, your house looks so pretty already. We didn't do lights on the house this year, dh didn't want to put them up. I couldn't blame him. I did a few on the porch, though.
I hate making returns! Good luck with that.
Kari,
Good luck with the lights. I'm still trying to figure out what to do. We don't have any wood on the exterior of our home, so I can't even pound a nail to keep the lights up.
As far as christmas presents go, I made a calendar for my mom, and am making books for Greg's parents on Shutterfly. Since we don't live near them, I'm kind of doing a year in review. It's hard to believe how much the kids have changed in a year!
Julie,
Good gift ideas! And, for our lights we use plastic clips and clip them to our "gutters" on the eaves. Maybe that would work on your house? Is it stucco?
Oh, I so hear ya on the kindergarten thing. It's not long enough to get any errands done without having to race back and hope you're not late. I'm in a nice lull between kids, so I don't have any half days this year. Yay!
I'm excited for the day I have a house to put up Christmas lights!! Yours looks so great!
Love the lights! I am so with you on the shopping.
Ugh--you have jst described why I stay away from the stores! Your house looks great with the white lights. I'll be curious to see the red ones too. We don't put any on the house just because I am too lazy to motivate Günter to do it. We just have these electric candles pyramids in the windows.
I am like you, not a huge shopper and sometimes hate having to find the Perfect thing.
Something I do with my receipts. I have a receipt caddy just like my coupons. I have them split into Target, Old Navy, Costco, and misc. I have saved a slot for Christmas reciepts that way when I need to return I can just open my little caddy and there is the receipt. I keep it in my purse with my coupon caddy or in the car.
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