Christmas Shall Hereforth Be December 27th

Does anyone else find it slightly INSANE that we shop, wrap, decorate, bake, sweat, bleed and swear for weeks and weeks and weeks at FULL price just to have everything be 90% off the next day?!?!?

I was at Chez Target today (we needed plastic baggies and cat litter: how glamorous...) All of their Christmas shwag is 50% off. The clearance racks are bursting with 30 - 75% off joy. Mervyn's is closing its doors for good tomorrow - everything in the store is 90% off. (I wasn't strong enough to brave that chaos after wandering aimlessly through Target for three hours, trying to figure out where they have moved everything to post-remodel...) Even our local crafting store, Beverly's, has a one day sale today with ALL Christmas goodies 90% off. OldNavy/Gap/JCrew/LLBean/KodakGallery - all have MAJOR sales going off like firecrackers in stores and online.

90% off. CAN YOU IMAGINE?!?! 9-0! OMG, dude!

Our economy is in the tank, I'm jobless, Matt's company has already laid off half its workforce... So why couldn't we all just wait until today to "deck the halls" with toys and candy? (Is See's having a sale? I'm so there...) Would it really kill us to wait a few extra days if it meant that we could be slightly more fiscally responsible? Or is their a deeper message to ponder here?

"What does this all mean???" That we don't really need that crap that we're scooping up "since it is 90% off, after all!" ...or that companies have over-stocked? ...or that our consumer-driven endless-supply-needed culture is, perhaps, in need of such a ginormous wake-up call as a "great" depression?

Too much to ponder with a Target-sucked-brain. At least the horrific Christmas muzack has stopped... replaced with love songs and Valentine's Day decor. Good grief.

..and the gifts are done...

This Christmas is very different for me - so many changes this year...

- Our first Married Christmas (how exciting!)

- My first Unemployed Christmas (how... exciting?)

- My first MassiveNumbersOfIn-Laws Christmas (really exciting! Nieces and nephews, oh my!)

- An attempt at following the Advent Conspiracy as closely as possible (helps with item #2 on this list...)

- My brother has a new girlfriend, my best friend/PLP (platonic life partner...) and her husband have moved to Atlanta, I'm completely off dairy, our house is more focused on a baby in a manger 2000 years ago than a gift under the tree, my favoritest Sarah is expecting her first baby in March, only one more month of a Bush in the White House and I discovered this year that I love fava beans.

In an attempt to reign in the crazy gift-buying that I seem to get swept up in every year, Matt and I decided that I would make most of our gifts, as my days have been rather freed up as of late... (grimace/grin) It seemed like an innocent and easy way for us to be mindful of our finances and put more meaning into our gifts... It quickly transformed into an all-out obsession and time vacuum in which I made fleece "ugly dolls" for the seven kids in our lives, crocheted my way through my MIL, dad, brother and husband's gifts, developed bath tea bags with lavender and chamomile from our garden, baked a billion cookies, went cross-eyed sewing purses and sachets and skirts and aprons, became incredibly frustrated with watercolors and wasted an hour trying to get a sticker off a picture-frame-glass before finally finding the GooGone... Ha!

But in all that, there is such a sense of accomplishment and happiness as I look over the baskets of gifts that I'm loading into the car today. We didn't go overboard. We were mindful of special treats instead of toss-out crap. I was able to watch Pride & Prejudice and North & South a gazillion times while crafting...

There is nothing wrong with a store-bought gift. It has simply been a luxury this year to make many of our own gifts. And for that I am grateful.

Wishing a Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Sara