Christmas Shopping

I started Christmas shopping before September, and was mostly finished before December. I have a closet (inconveniently located in the guest room) where I keep presents to be given in the future.

I did most of my shopping via catalogs and the Internet this year. I think there's something to be said for making decisions about what gift to buy for each person on your list while sitting comfortably in the quiet of your home, rather than in a store where merchandise always looks most appealing and you begin to feel like maybe your little sister really would like that thing in the corner, and maybe it's got character rather than being simply ugly as you first thought. And if you buy it you can leave now and be all done. So, hopefully, the gifts we got for people are stuff they'll really use or appreciate rather than just gifts for the sake of spending money and giving something.

There's also something to be said for not popping into and out of stores with an infant or toddler in tow.

In my defense, I also ought gifts at 3 independent, locally owned, little downtown shops in our town. But I'm still planning to go to the mall later today, even though I don't strictly need anything from there. It just seems wrong to me, somehow, to not set foot in the mall even once during the holiday shopping rush. And of course that's wrong all by itself.