The most wonderful time of the year!

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

My brother has an annual tradition every Thanksgiving of pissing people off, which he says saves him alot of money. However, this past Thanksgiving he did the opposite. Far as I know he didn't win the lottery so apparently some people do change after a while.

My wife would always do most all of Christmas shopping on Black Friday, heading out at 9pm with her girlfriends and not coming back home till 4-5 in the morning with a car load (sometimes 2 cars) of gifts. She was anti-online shopping and said that takes all the fun out of it, plus you can't haggle prices online. Waiting in lines for hours was no big deal to her and actually kept her calm. She was the type that could strike up a conversation on anything with anyone and manage to get the intel she was after on anyone or anything. Watching her work employing psychological tactics on cashiers to haggle a price was a helluva scene to behold. Though, I'm usually reaching in my pocket for a handful of cash and holding it out toward the cashier as like a bribe while my wife is gently pushing me away...whispering, go sit in the goddamn car. Half hour or so later she'd be strolling out with a cart of gifts smiling & giggling. She'd say see, I saved us $48 dollars. Now onward to the next big box store she'd sing like jingle bells. Over the years I would never go shopping with her again, which suited me just fine, And...

That took all the stress off me and would call the boys over for drinks, cards, cigars, & movies. Great times, no stress, until she arrived back home clamoring & hollering to unload the car. Though most often by the time she arrived back home, we were all blitzed & crashed out under the tree.

Each gift had to have the appropriate gift wrapping & properly measured squared off paper cutting & judicious use of scotch tape.

My stress time came when it was time to haul all the gifts to UPS, USPS, & FedEx (which all boxes were so labeled), coming back home hours later with receipts in hand and wife waiting at the door. She would then post them one by one on her cork board and inevitably was always one that shipped via wrong carrier that would send her into a tailspin. My fingers crossed every December until every receipt on the board was X'd off as received.

Soooo, I just learned to go with the flow. Yes dear, task #37 post-it note  has been completed...shall I ccontinue? No, you can take a break. Thank you dear, I'm retiring to my bat cave.

Mistakes inevitably happen, often through no fault of our own. Earlier I checked tracking on a package shipped to our son in Virginia that was supposed to be delivered to him today. Somehow the package has ended up in Des Moines, Iowa instead. The tracking receipt definitely shows Virginia and Iowa is in the opposite direction. C'est la vie!