Ok...
So I am a Christmas fanatic. I love the feeling of the season and all the pretty lights. I love all the get togethers and the gift giving. Its just fun. This year to we wanted to take a year off of doing the gift thing and told everyone just to forget it but we just couldn't do it. We have cut back a ton...probably like 300% if I was a mather. It got me to thinking of why gift giving is important.
Christ's Birth was the greatest gift that the world has ever seen. It was God's whole self poured out into a gift for us. So for me to celebrate by giving gifts and sacrificing my time in energy somehow made more sense. I am really excited about the gifts we got our family this year - they are ridiculously simple - but I am still probably more excited than I have been in the past few years for sure. I think part of it is that I don't have that sickening feeling in my stomach wondering how we are going to make it through January!!! And of course the other part is that I feel as though I have captured a little bit of the true wonder of Christmas in my heart.
So Get Ready to Switch
That all being said, I continue to marvel at the strength and endurance it takes to go shopping with kids. Especially with car seats and strollers and all the extra bags...oh and did I mention car seats!!! Eliana, Gabe and I went out today...stupid day to go out. It was so cold for the kids that they fussed in and out of every store...poor things. Then Eliana is such an 'ADD' walker (I use that term loosely) and Gabe is getting heavy in that seat of his - but I figure at least I can set him down when I want to when he is in it. Then can someone tell me why stores insist on the coin thing for carts?!!? Sure they get their carts back but I swear those things are going to be my undoing. You gotta try to park close to the little cart sheds (which is no easy task) and then make sure you have your looney or quarter (again who carries change these days. Then once you get in a store you have to make sure you have everyone fed and happy and entertained while trying to push your squeaky wheeled tank of a cart up and down crowded isles. Then inevitably one of the kids needs to go potty or has a diaper explode. Don't even get me started on the bathroom thing. I KNOW that I am not the only one that goes through all this!! I saw a mom the other day with her baby in a carrier on her tummy, pushing a cart loaded to the gills that was so heavy she was having trouble turning it, with her crying toddler perched on top of all the food because there was no where else to sit. I wanted to go over and shake her hand or get her autograph but I was busy trying to make Gabe a bottle in the middle of an isle myself.
So I guess I just want to congratulate all of you that have this exercise down to a fine art so that it looks easy...cuz I can tell you its not. And for all of you that come home after running errands and you feel as though the shopping world has just kicked the, well you know, out of you...know that I am cheering on your heroic efforts and that someone else in this world hates car seats and shopping carts as much as you do
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