As I sit here with my coffee, I'm thinking ahead to the upcoming Christmas season. It brings about a certain feeling of both frustration and makes me feel just a little bit crazy. It seems that for the past several years I've struggled a lot with finding my Christmas Spirit.
I remember clearly last year when we finally arrived home Christmas evening after all of the family gatherings and gift exchanging thinking..."Wow it's finally over." Then I was suddenly filled with a slight feeling of joy inside that I had come through yet another Christmas alive. I actually joked with Bart all Christmas Season last year that all I wanted for Christmas was January 1st. For that year to just be over, fast forward through the holidays straight to the new year.
I wonder when it happened....
I wonder when I stopped getting excited about Christmas and instead started feeling a sense of dread and drudgery about the whole season.
Don't get me wrong, I love the whole food aspect of the holiday season,(Just take one look at my ass and you can TELL that.), but what I despise is the whole sense of consumerism in it. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever you call it....people trampling each other for cheap plastic crap from china...I just don't get it!
You know when I do my Chritsmas Shopping? Generally between December 18th and Christmas Day. Payday is the 1st and the 20th for me so that's when I have money.
I always tell myself every year, "I'm going to get it all done before Thanksgiving.." and it never happens that way..EVER.
I don't use credit cards, I hate them, I think they are evil and get you into trouble. We're pretty much a cash only family, if you can't pay cash for it then you don't need it. The exception to the rule on this is cars and really big items like our house.
I know some people who spend literally THOUSANDS of dollars on Christmas on credit cards, and struggle all year to pay it back. Sorry but that kind of takes all the joy out of it. We buy what we can afford to buy and move on. It's Christmas, it's not worth going into debt or going hungry for.
I love giving gifts, but hate feeling like I didn't spend quite enough on people, and maybe they didn't like what I got them. It's almost as if some people feel like the dollar amount you spent is equal to how much you care about them.
I generally make up HUGE batches of homemade fudge and other treats and package them up for gift giving. I'll give those to friends and family either alone as a gift or with something else as an add-on gift.
Getting gifts is great, but still makes me feel a little uncomfortable, especially if what I get from someone obviously cost more than what I spent on them. It's a vicious cycle.
A couple of years ago I said to hell with it all and just started buying Master Card Gift Cards from my bank for all of the people on my list 12 and over. It took a lot of stress out of my holiday shopping and I felt it was a great gift because then the recipient could go and pick out whatever they needed or wanted. (Our local bank offers Master Card Gift Cards with no hidden fees and no expiration dates. They make great gifts and you get them directly from the teller and they take the money directly out of your bank account when you purchase them. I think they make GREAT gifts, and it's a really great service.)
If you needed a tank of gas, or a haircut, or a lunch out, or a new sweater you could make the choice yourself what to spend the money on. I personally LOVE gift cards for anything.
As a matter of fact I have let it be known to all that might be shopping for me this year that I want gift cards for Lowes for Christmas. Why? Because for the past year I have been without a working dishwasher, and it would thrill my heart to no end to be able to put all of my Christmas Gift Cards together and purchase one.
Hand washing dishes for 5 people has become a nightmare chore for me, and my hands, and my nails. I can't even imagine how joyful it would be to be able to just load all the dirty dishes into a machine and close the door and walk away. I think it would be downright heavenly.
Of course if I don't wind up getting a dishwasher for Christmas it won't be the end of the world. We'll just save our pennies and other change for awhile and get one ourselves.
And on that note I'm going to hit publish on this post and go and try to find something productive to do....there's plenty of dishes in the sink that need washin'!
Black Friday is known for its deals and steals. What items are you hoping to find in the stores this Friday?
Sponsored by Best Buy. Find holiday gifts for everyone on your list.
One of these -
http://bfads.net/Maytag-SuperSize-Capacity-Plus-41-cuft-Washer-and-72-cuft-Dryer
http://bfads.net/LG-ExtraLarge-Capacity-40-cuft-Washer-and-73-cuft-Dryer
And maybe one of these -
http://bfads.net/Toshiba-Laptop-w-Intel-Core-2-Duo-Windows-7-3GB-RAM-250GB-HDD-at-Best-Buy
Just ask yourself when you're shopping for a new cell phone:
"Do you want an iPhone, or an HTC Hero and a 50-inch plasma TV?" LOL I LOVE IT!
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The article summary from Yahoo! Tech has some interesting information. Which really isn't that surprising. It doesn't even mention that your laptop is probably out of date about a month after you buy it. All this really says to me, as I've always believed, is why spend thousands of dollars on a laptop. Most of the ones under $500 will do exactly what you need. Unless you're playing games or working heavily on specific tasks, for most of us who use our laptops to surf the web and listen to a little music and sync our MP3 players and store pictures of the kids, the cheaper laptops will do fine.
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I still wouldn't trade it in for a DSLR.... yet.
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I'm speechless. x
I will say however, that the article sheds a new light for me on a question that I've had. As a SLR and DSLR user, I've been wondering why Nikon (specifically) has chosen to upgrade their 10 and 12 mp cameras (and with video) rather than come out with a new camera with say... 15mp. There are point and shoots out now that are capable of 12mp at a price in the same neighborhood as a DSLR with 10mp. It's an uneasy feeling waiting for that 15mp DSLR and watching everything around it 'upgraded' for image quality. Is Nikon trying to appease the masses and draw in crowds of people to DSLR by offering their old flagships as new flagships with video capabilities? Thereby keeping the DSLR alive?
If so, it could be a long wait for that upgraded D90
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I went to the zoo again today. But that's not really what this post is about. As I was leaving I saw that Nessie had arrived. I'll have to go back again sometime to get some photos of her. But this post isn't about that either.
I sat on a picnic table and watched as parts of Nessie were unloaded. They took a break and I heard someone say they wouldn't start back up for another hour so I left. But during the approximately hour that I was watching the action there were two squirrels trying to see if I had anything interesting. And to them interesting meant food.
Neither was scared of me. In fact they both came within inches of the camera.
And both squirrels were fat. Really fat. We have a lot of squirrels around our house but these "city squirrels" really needed to go on a diet.
The squirrels' diet wasn't helped by the mom and two kids who were feeding them fries. Both squirrels would get a fry and come back toward me to feast.
