I don’t know why but I do this every year: come November, I start making my holiday shopping list, checking it twice, and plotting out how I am going to rise and shine bright and early on Black Friday and hit the shops for big savings.

Then the alarm goes off on Friday at 4 a.m. and as always, I realize I don’t want to get up so early on my day off so I shut off the alarm and go back to bed.  “I’ll shop this weekend” is what I murmur, and back to sleep I go.  Then the weekend comes and goes, as does the next, and the next, and suddenly I’m panicking trying to come up with last minute gift ideas because all my ideas have long disappeared from store shelves.

So now it’s December 14th and have about 2 days to shop for everyone in my family because they all live out of state and I have to ship everything early so I won’t pay more in postage than I did for the gift.  I’ve decided everyone this year is going to get a gift card which, by the way, is the best invention since sliced bread.  So, unlike most years, my Christmas panic time came and went rather painlessly.  Perhaps next year I’ll get up on Black Friday and shop early. Or not.

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