19 Comments

  1. Unknown's avatar

    No one goes to the mall any more because it’s so crowded…

    Well, in this case it is crowded because it’s the only one.

  2. Unknown's avatar

    No one goes to the mall any more because they buy stuff online.

    Except on Black Friday, when the in-person shopping experience is unique and worth going out for. But since no one shops there the rest of the year, all but one has closed.

  3. Unknown's avatar

    Or possibly that Amazon and other online retailers have driven brick-and-mortar out of business, so people who want to actually visit a physical store/mall find fewer to go to? We no longer get the delivered newspaper with the ads for the Black Friday sales at CompUSA and Computer City, Toys Ya Us, The Bon-Ton, itd.?

  8. Unknown's avatar

    You go to the mall so you can pick up the gift right away rather than waiting for delivery, so you are sure to have it, now that there are only 31 days until Christmas.

  9. Unknown's avatar

    For those who don’t understand why CaroZ is (still) laughing at “Toys Ya Us”: the Russian letter “я” is transliterated as the “ya” sound.
    P.S. I knew a kid who (as a preschooler) seemed to interpret the (spoken) “R” in “Toys я Us” (in TV advertisements) to be the verb “are”. The result was that he usually referred to the store as “Us Toys”.

  12. Unknown's avatar

    I’ve completed my Christmas gift shopping, wrapping, and mailing.

    Absolutely no pertinence to the discussion but I needed to tell somebody other than the recipients (among whom I’m known for crazy old uncle gift choices).

  13. Unknown's avatar

    Welllll, since you brought it up: Cards printed, labeled and stamped; mailing on 1 December, except for international; they went out two weeks ago. Gifts ordered and rec’d; they’ll be wrapped and given soon. Now to take down Autumn/Thanksgiving decos and put up Holiday ones, and a few trees.

    Meanwhile, it’s in the 80’s outside; hardly conducive (for me) to the Holiday spirit. I used to wait for the first snowstorm to listen to Dylan Thomas’ reading of ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ to get me ‘in the spirit’, but THAT ain’t gonna happen. I guess I fake it ’til I make it, Holiday-spirit-wise.

  15. Unknown's avatar

    I never really understood the Toys R Us name, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen.

    There is a store where you can buy stuff for your baby, called Buy Buy Baby.

    When you read the name, it’s fine, but when you hear the name, it sounds like an abortion clinic.

  16. Unknown's avatar

    I thought it was suppose to mean Toys are us.

    We went to Barnes & Nobles late on Friday as husband had a 50% off coupon (which meant I did to, but didn’t print it). He wanted to get the new James Bond book and we did. No traffic – more parking available than on a Friday night at 9 pm.

  17. Unknown's avatar

    Decorating is about 70% of our Christmas – most of it inside decorating. 28% of our Christmas (or it might even be the other was around) is doing the Candlelight night events at the local restoration village with our reenactment unit. There is something about being in a house which was built in 1740 and is lit only by candles and a fire, dressed in period clothing, with period music being played (by other members of the unit) and period songs being song (ditto) that is wonderful.

    We have gotten to the point where we buy a gift for each of his nieces – 8 and 16 years old for Christmas – which is tossed aside and lost in the excessive number of gifts from their parents, followed by same from their (other) grandmother. I mail a check to my niece and nephew for Chanukah. Robert will buy a book and/or some DVDs from the discount bin at Walmart (and he has the book already). Then our gift shopping is done as most years I don’t want or get anything. (It took about 15 years of being together for him to understand that “I don’t want anything – don’t buy anything” actually means that.

    When I took the turkey carving platter downstairs to store it last weekend, I was about to bring up my Corelle Christmas dishes and my Christmas glasses (for every day during the holiday season) and the wire holder we have for card display and thought a minute and decided to wait for this coming weekend to start the holiday decorating. 5 trees from 6.5 ft to about a foot (and that is a beaded tree I made), living room sort of Victorian – with modern things added – with the beaded tree and big tree. Studio gets a small tree with only items we have made (other items we made are on big tree). Upstairs at the top of the stairs is where the teddy village is – tree with bear ornaments (more bear ornaments on big tree) and bears celebrating Christmas and winter. Newest tree is the one in the dining room. Dining room is decorated, other than the tree as colonial era Christmas. A tree is not appropriate, but same as when we added the other trees, our annual ornaments from Colonial Williamsburg took over the front of the main tree and needed their own tree, and we decided to put it in the dining room.

  18. Unknown's avatar

    Forgot – we put up lights on the bushes in front of the house. We have not cleared the leaves due to Robert not being able to work on it. So, today seeing the other houses ready (and later lit tonight) we (I) cleared the leaves. My preferred system is to rake them to the driveway and then use a deep snow shovel. The rain last night helped keep them together on the shovel. I think something like 9 or 10 bags and there is another bag’s worth on the side of the house to finish – but it was too dark.

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