I typically finish my Christmas shopping rather early, but this year was a bit different. I’m a member of an online LDS forum called Nauvoo, and one of the members who lives near me has a son who has been very sick. So upon some discussion and the brilliant ideation of mini.michaela, we gathered up some money and gift certificates and today I headed out, dressed in full holiday regalia and armed with donated gift certificates.
First I went to Deseret Book. That store kept making me cry today as I looked at pictures of my Savior and I thought of the great things He has done for me and I thought of the young man for whom we were gifting. I bought a CD, a journal, and a book by Neal A. Maxwell and got out of there as quickly as I could.
Then, under duress of one of my gift certificates, I headed for my nemesis, the mall. Parking was crazy but I found a good spot and got some good stuff: a cute stuffed beagle and some really fluffy socks that I was tempted to buy more of because the deals were incredible. No wonder so many people shop on Christmas Eve! Then I grabbed some spicy Chinese food and headed out into the cold again.
Next stop: CompUSA. They have some good deals going on right now because corporate is closing all their stores down, but not as good of deals as I would like, and they don’t appear to carry games anymore. Still, that was a dangerous store. I’m lucky I got out of there without a laser printer.
Next was the heart of my shopping: Cost Plus. I call it the heart, but that mostly because that’s where I got the basket that everything else went in. 🙂 That place is the BEST place for baskets! And international chocolates. And stuff like that. I got a nice Asian dinner set, since Jordan has been living in China and that’s where Brianna is from. Also got some chocolates and a seahorse-shaped bubble gun. Because EVERYONE needs a bubble gun.
Then I walked over to Barnes and Noble. Another dangerous store. Luckily I had to go to the bathroom too badly to be distracted by all the interesting books. Made it out of there without having bought anything, so hooray!
Got into Archiver’s 5 minutes before closing and bought a nice photo album, in red, because red is a Good Color in Chinese culture. The fact that they were closing scared me so I rushed to Best Buy for a gift certificate. Considering that I don’t even KNOW these people in real life, I think making it through with only one gift certificate is pretty good! It had a nifty LED display that I tried to program to say ‘Get Well Soon’ but the interface was clumsy and frustrating so I ended up just saying ‘Get Wel lhi’ or something like that so they will have to be happy with that.
All done, delivery time. It only took about 10 minutes to get to Bonnie’s house from the mall area, and they were so excited to see me! It was so nice talking with them and explaining the gifts. Brianna immediately started reading the Maxwell book and Jordan started playing with the bubble gun, so I think I done good. 🙂 We took a picture, which I don’t have a copy of, of us with the stuffed dog. Hopefully it will go in the album. I start to see where Santa gets so much joy from.