Weekend Assignment # 346: Holiday Procrastinator

Continuing with the seasonal theme:

Weekend Assignment # 346: Holiday Shopper

Ack! The holiday shopping season is upon us! What is your shopping strategy for this time of year? Do you spread out your shopping over weeks and months, or try to get it all done at once? Do you mostly shop online or in person? How heavily, if at all, do you rely on gift cards, gift certificates or plain old fashioned cash and checks?

Extra Credit: Do you enjoy shopping the Black Friday and after-Christmas sales?

Um, I haven't started yet.

This is not unusual for me. It's not that I hate to shop, but I have limited patience with lines, and even more limited funds to spend. I'm not likely to get in line to buy anyone a new tv or computer at a deep discount. The only person I can afford to spend significant money on these days is my husband, and frankly we have a history of returning his "big present" to Best Buy (or wherever) immediately after Christmas or his birthday. We do this almost every year, it seems.

Even more limited in supply is my fund of ideas for what to get anyone. As you can tell from the above, shopping for John is a perennial problem. He tends to just buy what he wants. If he doesn't buy it, it means he doesn't think we should spend the money.

For many years, my dad organized Christmas lists, so that we all knew what other family members wanted and could share out gift ideas for each family member to buy; but even he has pretty much given up on this now. He sends a check, and I send Amazon gift certificates, to just about everybody. Or Borders or Barnes and Noble gift cards. Same thing, really, just in person.

A gift from me to me: sandals that fit!

So, no standing in line at Best Buy at 4:45 AM, as an old classmate of mine documented on Facebook Friday morning with a photo of a Best Buy line in Binghamton, NY. No turning in at Park Place Mall. I did want to participate in a push to buy local on Saturday, but I forgot. Nevertheless I managed it, by accident. Michael of Michael's Shoes, who is also the deacon at St. Michael's, coincidentally enough, is having a sale at his store. Since his store was the source of the only decent shoes I've bought in the past decade for my large, flat, pain-prone feet, I decided it was a good idea to get another pair while I could get them, especially at a substantial discount. So I walked in yesterday and said, "Show me anything you have in stock that's likely to fit and not hurt my feet!" Most of what they brought out was either too masculine or not right for the shape of my feet; but I got a nice and non-pain-inducing pair of sandals, probably the first pair I've had since college, if not high school. Okay, so it's a present from me to me, but I did buy local, on the big shopping weekend!

Still, I'm working up my plans and ideas. I have established that John doesn't want me to buy him an iPad, except possibly after I get the job I applied for last week. (More on this if anything comes of it.) On the other hand, he has mentioned a few things in passing, mostly housewares. I'll have to look into those possibilities.

Given that my unemployment benefits are currently under threat by Republicans in Congress, I'm going to have to wait to see whether I can send friends and family the usual Amazon gifts, and how much. There is one exception to this calculation, though. A friend of mine Back East, with whom I've been exchanging birthday and holiday gifts for three decades, was burned out of his home a few weeks ago when his landlord's apartment, which was below his, caught fire. Because it rained the following night, his apartment was so structurally unsound that he couldn't even go back in for the few possessions that survived. He's hoping to use Amazon to replace a few favorite books, and I'll be supplementing that with a few mathoms. I wish I could do more, but he's the sort of person who is embarrassed if anyone does anything in a situation like this!

Here are the guidelines if you'd like to participate in this week's Weekend Assignment.

1. Please post your response no later than than 12:01 AM on Thursday morning, December 2nd, your local time. You can do this either in a blog entry of your own or in the comments section of the assignment entry. No submissions will be accepted after that time unless I really want to.

2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to the original entry. Using one of the logos shown here is encouraged but not mandatory.

3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments to the assignment. Please post the URL itself rather than a live link.

4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!

5. I'm always looking for topic ideas. Please see the "Teacher's Lounge" page for details. If I use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor." Help me out, folks, because sometimes I run dry when doing this week after week!

6. I reserve the right to remove rude or unpleasant comments (not to mention comment spam), and to leave entries off the linking list if the person has been rude or unpleasant, or fails to mention the Weekend Assignment in the entry.

That's it for now. I realize it's a busy time of year, but please jump in with an entry if you can. Have a great week! I'll be back Friday night with my Round Robin entry.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #246: Surprise!

It's been a mindboggling year in many ways, and not all of it has been good news. Let's focus on the personal and the positive, shall we?

Weekend Assignment #246: A strange and sometimes difficult year is drawing to a close. Tell us about something that happened this year that was a pleasant surprise for you personally.

Extra Credit: Are you looking forward to the new year?

Let's go ahead and combine my answer to this question with Steven's Feline and Furball Friday, because I'm going to talk about my dogs for a bit.

My faithful companions.

As you probably know, it's been a difficult year for me, what with my being laid off, a longish stretch of unemployment, the death of my dog Tuffy from cancer and a cancer scare of my own. All these stresses and losses have been partially offset, however, by the two dogs who came into our lives this year: Cayenne and Pepper. I could have foreseen that if Tuffy didn't make it through the year, we would have a new dog by now. But I didn't anticipate two dogs, or what a big part of my life they would become.

They're with me night and day, these dogs, either in the room with me or hanging out on the couch in the den while I type in my office a few feet away. I'm a little embarrassed sometimes that they don't spend more time with John, but I gave each of them a lot of attention early on while John was at work, and now they're used to having me around. They're in for a bit of a shock when I get a job!

Pepper, in relaxation mode.

Pepper arrived first, and required more effort to tame her. She was my birthday present back in March, a rescue dog selected off a web site, who had been on death row at the pound along with her puppies. She was far from thrilled to meet us or Tuffy when we first met her at a PetSmart on the southwest side of town, but we took her home anyway. She was stubborn and willful, not so much ignorant about human commands as she is indifferent to them. Like Tuffy, she wasn't the most affectionate dog in the world, but nevertheless wanted to keep tabs on our whereabouts.

But that was a while ago, and Pepper's come a long way since then. She's still not big on licking and other major signs of affection, but now she joins me in the front seat of the car and smiles at me as we head to the dog park. She obeys me about 65% of the time, up from about 10%. And she seems to actively enjoy being scratched and petted by us now, whereas early on she'd be more likely to walk away. Yes, she's turned into a good dog!

Cayenne, resting up before her next burst of activity.

Cayenne has a similar history to Pepper's, but a very different temperament. Fostered out to a Humane Society volunteer until her puppies were weaned, she was specifically recommended to us when we stopped by their facility on August 2nd, the day after Tuffy was euthanized. The red dog with the bandanna seemed to get along fine with us and with Pepper, so we took her home. She's not the least bit standoffish; in fact she's a little too dependent on me. She's reasonably obedient, moderately affectionate, a showoff and a clown. And I love her to bits!

Cayenne, Pepper and a doggie acquaintance

From the Picasa album Trouble Dogs

Without a job to go to, my day is structured by the late afternoon visits to the dog park. It's not just the dogs who benefit from socialization there; I do too. I'm on speaking terms with a few people there now, and that helps a lot when my only other in-person contacts are with John and with Safeway employees when I shop. This too is a pleasant surprise. Who could have guessed that a dog park (which Tuffy didn't like at all) would be an enjoyable part of my daily routine?

Your turn! Tell us about some pleasant surprise in your life this year, big or small. Write about this in your blog along with a link back here, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your responses. Here are the ones from last week:

For Weekend Assignment #245: Holiday Traditions I asked about changes in holiday traditions. Four of you answered:

Julie said...

I used to make cookies every Christmas, and perhaps that's something I'll do again this year. I have a Pfefferneuse recipe from my grandma on my dad's side. I never could get it right until she showed me how to make it. She came from the old school of cooking. "Add the ingredients until the dough feels like this." Once she taught me how the dough was supposed to feel, I was able to make the cookies.

Martha said in comments...

I sure hope I have time to play along on this week's assignment - I have lots of good stuff to share!

I can't believe you have the aluminum tree with the light color changing thingie! My Grandmother had that same set up, I thought it was the best thing ever when I was a kid - you brought back some very fond memories for me.

I love your stocking tradition! I think I'll add that to our family traditions this year! :-)

Florinda said...

Maintaining holiday traditions with these blended and reconfigured families and their negotiated schedules can get complicated - we need to be flexible. There's not a specific day when we always put up the tree, because we want to do that with my stepkids and it depends on which weekends we have them with us - and since The Boy's birthday is in mid-December, we try not to mix it up with Christmas stuff. We usher in our holiday season with a family viewing of A Christmas Story, but whether that happens after Thanksgiving dinner (if we spend Turkey Day with the kids) or on the weekend when we put up the tree (if we don't) changes from one year to the next.

Mike said...

The first one I came up with is the, "Crap, we need to get a tree" tradition. No, we don't have one yet. I work a lot of weekends, so it makes it difficult to plan a day when we can all go. We get a real tree, but we don't go and chop our own down or anything. Usually we go to Home Depot, or a church that is close to where I work.

That's it for now! Busy as I'm sure you are, I hope you'll take the time to participate this week. Write about up the assignment in your blog or journal, and include a link back here. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. Please don't forget your links! I'll be back in a week to highlight the results.

A reminder: I'm still running low on ideas here, so I still need your input. What would you like to see as a Weekend Assignment topic? Email me your suggestions (mavarin at aol.com). If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #245: Holiday Traditions

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that despite everything, Christmas is coming, along with Hanukkah, Solstice etc. Help me jumpstart the spirit of the season by responding to this week's Weekend Assignment:

Weekend Assignment #245: Some holiday traditions continue from generation to generation, some fall by the wayside, and some new ones arise as we strike out on our own, form new families and adapt to changes in culture and technology. How traditional are your holiday traditions, compared to decades past?

Extra Credit: What is your most unusual holiday tradition?

The picture at right (which is old and crummy - I should rephotograph the thing) is of a CD John made from a long out of print Christmas record, known in the family as "the green record." The original was on green vinyl, one of the few colored vinyl records I saw until the seventies. If that didn't make it magical enough, We Wish You A Merry Christmas by the Robert Rheims Choraliers had more to offer. It was an excellent collection of traditional arrangements of pretty much every traditional Christmas carol, accompanied by organ and chimes. There were only two verses each on most of them, but that helped to cram more songs on the circa 1960 LP. To me, it's hard to feel that it's really Christmas without hearing these arrangements of these songs. I've been listening to them at Christmas all my life. And by the way, John feels much the same about Christmas songs by the Chipmunks - but only the Ross Bagdasarian originals, not the recent stuff.

A mix of old and new traditions

I don't suppose it's that unusual to have a favorite recording of Christmas music, although I grant you, my choice of same is a little obscure. Other customs around here are a mixture of old and new, sometimes in the very same tradition! Take, for example, our Christmas tree. As I was growing up, the Funk family always, always had a real tree. Anything else was anathema to me. But John likes artificial ones, and I have to admit that our vintage aluminum tree is fun and stylish. It's not historically my tradition, but it is sort of John's, and the tree itself has an unknown history reaching back decades. Similarly, the ornaments on it are a an assortment of genuine vintage ones and modern reproductions of vintage ones, and a few in-the-old-style shapes that may not have vintage counterparts. I don't think a single one of our aluminum tree-friendly ornaments was on one of the old Funk trees, but most of the designs were.

But I still buy a real tree most years. A small one. 'Cause it's another tradition that's hard to give up.

The most worn-out, most decorated stocking in town

Our most unusual tradition is one I tried to describe to John Scalzi back in 2004, in the aftermath of some long ago Weekend Assignment. Very early in our marriage, perhaps as early as Christmas 1979, John and I bought plain red Christmas stockings, and used gold glitter and stick on lettering to label them with each other's names and initials. Every year, we're supposed to add some little decoration or bauble, with the result you see above. Then of course we fill them, with toys and candy and writing implements and batteries and gadgets and a tangerine in the toe. It's great, but the problem is, the stockings keep coming apart due to age and the cumulative weight of the baubles and stuffers. It used to be that just the strap to hang them from the fireplace would come off, but in recent years the whole stockings have started coming apart at the seams. Maybe this year I'll take them to Mendel's Wife the Tailor to be resewn.

Your turn! Tell us about your holiday traditions, preferably for one of the December holidays. Write about this in your blog along with a link back here, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your responses. Here are the ones from last week:

For Weekend Assignment #244: Black Friday, I asked about your Black Friday shopping habits, and any 2008 variations thereon. It's nice to know not everyone was in shop 'til you drop mode:


Martha said...

I started to post early today to complain about my daughter making her reservations to return to college on Black Friday. I knew she had to get back, but I dreaded the drive to get her to the station, I usually vow to never leave the house on Black Friday, the whole weekend for that matter. It's not the crowds in the stores (well, it is, but it's the idiots on the road that really seal the deal).

[So begins Martha's rather harrowing post....]

Julie said...

Even if we're home, I don't go out. I hate dealing with the crowds, and past experience shows the odds of actually acquiring the bargain I want in the store are almost exactly nil. Why bother, especially when I know I can find bargains over the next four weeks?

Carly said...

Ahhhh... Black Friday! That unofficial, in fact no where near a real holiday, holiday, that we look forward to every year! Alan and I have been getting up early to go out on Black Friday and watch people for years, in fact we weren't even a couple the first time we decided to do it. We were just two good friends who enjoyed watching people go crazy at the malls. We have seen a lot of strange things over the years, and even participated a little ourselves, but mostly we watch others in their quests for the perfect bargain gifts.

Mike said...

Anyway, no, I don't go shopping on Black Friday. I don't like shopping on a normal day; there is no way I'm going when the stores are bursting with people. I don't like crowds, have I mentioned that before?

Florinda said...

For years, I have said that the only store I want to go to on the day after Thanksgiving is the grocery store - which, for the record, I will avoid like the plague on the day before Thanksgiving. Sometimes I do end up at a big-box or discount store on Black Friday - I'll usually still need to make my normal weekly Target run - but I keep my distance from shopping malls. Ever since the year I went to Lenscrafters to pick up a pair of glasses without even thinking about what day it was - and it took me over half an hour to get out of the parking lot - I stay away from malls as much as possible for the entire weekend after Thanksgiving.

That's it for now! Busy as I'm sure you are, I hope you'll take the time to participate this week. Write about up the assignment in your blog or journal, and include a link back here. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. Please don't forget your links! I'll be back in a week to highlight the results.

A reminder: I'm still running low on ideas here, so I need your input. What would you like to see as a Weekend Assignment topic? Email me your suggestions (mavarin at aol.com). If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #244: Black Friday

The day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. has in recent decades been dubbed "Black Friday," in part because of the inconvenience of crowds and traffic jams on this major shopping day, and secondarily because it kicks off the season in which retailers are said to go "into the black" - that is, achieving a profit for the year after months of losses. It is the unofficial but widely recognized start of the Christmas shopping season. As I type these words, people on the east coast of the U.S are undoubtedly preparing to line up outside their store of choice, for the purpose of taking advantage of one-day-only bargains, or just to get a jump on Christmas shopping. My question to you this week is therefore a fairly obvious one:

Weekend Assignment #244: The day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. is widely believed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. Do you typically shop for holiday gifts on that day? If so, why? Is this year any different in that respect?

Extra Credit: Is there a particular bargain you are pursuing this year? If so, what is it?

Shopping patterns have probably changed in recent years, with many more retailers offering loss-leaders and other deals on Black Friday than they used to, providing an incentive to start shopping on that specific day. But for many years, it seemed to me that most of the crowds were on the last Saturday before Christmas, and on up until the stores closed on Christmas Eve. I suspect that I would see more shoppers on Black Friday now (well, maybe not this year) than I did in my record store retailing days, but 20 years ago that was the dynamic.

But except for the occasional items purchased during the year that I won't be able to buy later, such as merchandise from Disneyland, I don't typically buy any presents until mid-December. For one thing, there have been many years in which I had to wait for a last-minute Christmas bonus before I could afford to buy stuff, or even know how much I had to spend. For another, I personally find it hard to get into Christmas mode before December arrives. For a third, I just don't like the the social pressure of being expected to shop on a certain day. (Silly, I know.)

This year, I know pretty much for a fact that I won't have a job until Boxing Day at the earliest, and possibly not even then. If I get the position I'm up for, there will be a delay in my actually starting work. But if I get that good news, I will probably buy a modest number of gifts for John, my dad and brother and stepmother and put them all on a credit card, and feel guilty about it, and pay them off ASAP. If I don't, that plan will be scaled back. But even if I get the job offer on Black Friday itself, I'm unlikely to buy anything on that day.

That said, I know that John is planning to buy himself a present on Black Friday. He's been limping along for years with an early iPod that doesn't work very well, and doesn't seem terribly compatible with recent Mac operating systems. Friday there's a one-day sale on recent models, and he's been debating between a low-feature, high storage model and an iPod Touch. I've wanted to give him a new iPod at every Christmas and birthday for the past two or three years, and it looks as though he's finally going to give in to spending the money. But he wouldn't do it if there weren't a deep Black Friday discount*, and if he weren't expecting a decent bonus. I don't get the pleasure of buying it for him, but I'll live! After all, I bought myself the Doctor Who Series Four DVD set this month.

*Turns out it's not so deep, and he's dithering.

Your turn! Tell us about your Black Friday shopping habits, and any 2008 variations thereon. Write about this in your blog along with a link back here, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your responses. Here are the ones from last week:

For Weekend Assignment #243: Breakfast, I asked what you like to eat for breakfast. Here are the delicious results:

Julie said...

Well, there's a matter of what I like to eat, and what I should be eating. Most mornings it's the latter, meaning a bowl of "good for you" cereal. High-fiber, low-sugar, that sort of thing. And let's not forget the coffee. I used to not be able to stand the stuff, but I learned to like it about a decade ago.

Martha said...

My contribution to both is my super easy, unbelievably delicious, and very inexpensive recipe for Monkey Bread. It's great for a yummy holiday treat, but easy enough to make anytime!

John said in comments...

My all-time favorite breakfast is a bagel and cream cheese with the Sunday NY Times. When we lived in Brooklyn, this was easy -- you could pop down to a nearby bagel store in almost any neighborhood. In Rhode Island, we have to make do with Dunkin Donuts bagels and the Boston Globe. But we still do it most weeks.

Rest of the time I either skip breakfast or have a bowl of Raisin Bran.

Florinda said...

Within the last year, I've become a regular oatmeal eater despite my undying affection for cold cereal; it stays with me longer, which is desirable since I eat breakfast around 6:15 AM and I try not to break for lunch before 1:00 (a later lunch leaves less of the workday to get through after it), and those packets provide built-in portion control. I do mix some cold cereal - and fruit, when strawberries are available - into my oatmeal to make it a little less boring, though. I'll start on my coffee during breakfast, but it comes with me on the way to work, and I've usually finished it by the time I get there.

Mike said...

To be honest, I'm not much of a breakfast person. Mostly because I am too lazy to get up early enough to eat breakfast. If I am working, I get up with just enough time to shower, shave (maybe), get some lunch together (again, maybe), and head out the door. Any extra time that I think I might have in the morning is spent in bed. I work out calculations in my head as the alarm goes off to see how many times I can hit snooze before I definitely have to get up.

That's it for now! Busy as I'm sure you are, what with the shopping and all, I hope you'll take the time to participate this week. Write about up the assignment in your blog or journal, and include a link back here. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. Please don't forget your links! I'll be back in a week to highlight the results.

A reminder: I'm still running low on ideas here, so I need your input. What would you like to see as a Weekend Assignment topic? Email me your suggestions (mavarin at aol.com). If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen