I hate last minute Christmas shopping. I hate how crowded the stores get. I hate that the shelves are picked over. I hate cranky shoppers. For this reason, I usually get my shopping done early. This year, I really did not have time to go out Christmas shopping in the past few weeks, with finals for me at CSUN and getting my grades in, and all of the activities Marc has going on at church, it just got busy. However, knowing that this was going to happen, I brought up shopping for the kids with Marc many weeks ago and tried to get him to join me on Amazon shopping.
I am addicted to Amazon. They have practically everything under the sun, and the prices are usually comparable to retail stores or significantly cheaper. It is so easy and convenient, and as an Amazon Mom, I get free two-day shipping, so it really is just so shopper friendly. I love shopping on Amazon so much, I even buy some of my groceries on Amazon. Anyhow... so I had made both the kids Amazon wishlists with things I knew they would like and was trying to get Marc to look at them, but NO. Marc insisted that he wanted to go to a store, and preferably that we do it together. "Why?" I asked. "Why do you have to go to the store? We can shop together here from the comfort of the couch while our kids are asleep. We get to shop together and we don't have to get a sitter." But he insisted.
I started to realize this week that our schedules were not allowing ANY time for us to shop, not only together, but even alone without the kids. We pretty much are trading off the kids this week because of busy schedules. So, last night, I tell him to decide what he wants to get them, and I will go to Toys R Us after I get home (late, like 10:00, but TRU is open 24 hours until Christmas eve). But NO. Marc wants to shop, because he hasn't done any of the shopping yet (including for me, I assume, but he is on his own there). So, he says he is going to bring Tiana with him and go. He insists that he will somehow manage to hide from her what we are getting her.
Now, shopping with Tiana at all is a challenge, let alone trying to prevent her from seeing what is being purchased. She is not like Vinny. She does not sit still in the cart. She tries to climb out, or rather, not quite climb, just stand. She likes to ride the shopping cart standing, like a surfer catching a wave. No shopping car restraint system can contain her. I prefer not to do ANY shopping with her, but he could not be dissuaded, so I made a list and wished him luck.
When I got home from the movies with Vinny last night (we went to see The Muppets at El Capitan in Hollywood, more on that another time), Marc said he went, but he didn't buy anything. He said the store was a disaster, the people were cranky and rude, the prices were high, etc. He had a cart with a few things he had grabbed, but ultimately, shopping with Tiana was too difficult anyway, so he left. Finally... he agreed that we could shop online.
An hour of Amazon browsing later, we had found great deals on presents for Vinny, Tiana, Isabella (my niece), and a bunch of other family members we still had to shop for too. As we checkout, Marc says, "That's it?! That was so easy! I like Amazon." Geez... this could have been done weeks ago, and the presents would already be here for me to wrap, instead of showing up on Friday for me to rush and wrap.
Sigh.
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