Fa la la la fail.

I went shopping.  On a Saturday.  A week before Christmas.

I braved the insane, pre-Christmas hordes, didn't develop an eye twitch,  and didn't have to give anyone the People's Elbow.  I consider that a success.

I survived, but I cannot say the same thing about my bank account. 

I started off looking the picture of frugality.  Spending time hemming and hawing and comparing prices.  But as the day progressed, I fell prey to impulse purchasing, that cruel mistress.

I knew I was near the end of my sanity when I was giving serious consideration to a gadget designed to help coax toothpaste out of the tube.  I had nearly convinced myself that every single member of my immediate and not-so-immediate family would die without one of these devices. I literally stared at the "Tube Squeezer" for almost 10 minutes before I managed to walk away from it. 

That's not to say that I didn't impulse purchase other things, but I feel that avoiding the "Tube Squeezer" was a small triumph.

I don't understand how people can cavort around so joyfully while pre-Christmas shopping.  The moment I entered the mall, I set my eyes to "EPIC GLARE" mode and stopped around with extreme purpose.  I kept finding myself stuck behind shambling individuals who seemed to serve no purpose but to walk in front of me and stop abruptly.  I started wishing for zombies to come in and cull some of the herd.

And when I start wishing for zombies, that's when I know I've reached my limit.  Unfortunately, the zombie fantasies started about 20 minutes in to what turned into a 3 hour foray.

By the time I left, madly clutching several 4324 pound bags, all I wanted to do was go home and de-stress.

But I lost my car.

For those of you who don't know, I have the direction sense of a blind mollusk.  I get turned around getting in and out of elevators.  It's bad.

And because I came out of the mall from a different door and I stood, bewildered, in the rain, trying desperately to find my vehicle.

I wandered around the giant parking lot like a crazy person, clutching my car opener and emitting high pitched, worried noises. 

It took me about half an hour of fruitless, rain-drenched parking lot stalking before I finally found my car.  By that time, I had lost all feeling in both arms.  Joy.

I made it home with no further incident and I'm happy to report that I managed to wrap all of the presents without giving myself a debilitating paper cut.

Tis the season.

Family Ties

It's now nine days post Belize and I owe the world a blog post of epic proportions! That post, however, will have to wait until the husband uploads the 329843948 pictures we took.

(Seriously. We put an 8 gig memory card into that poor camera and took pictures of basically everything.)

This post sees us back in Port Moody after a quiet, low key, but wonderful Christmas with the husband, the brother and the parents in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. Please forgive the saccharine nature of this musing - I'm overly full of love and sugar at the time of posting!

For various reasons, this visit had me thinking a lot about family.

I come from a small and close family. There are two kids, one mom, a step dad and a scattering of aunts, uncles and cousins that live in different corners of the earth. The four of us have been through some very hard, trying times. These situations could have done one of two things - we could have been torn completely apart, or we could have grown much closer and forged deeper bonds.

Luckily for me, the hard times drew all of us into the safe harbor of the family. We learned to rely on one another and I think we came out of these situations knowing a new definition for the world "love".

Now that both Mike and I are grown ups, this bond we share with each other and with our parents is even stronger and important to all of us.

There are some tense times in my family right now and, just as before, it's drawn us into a tighter, more cohesive unit.

And, so, this Christmas was less about gifts and presents and more about re-affirming the love we all share.

It sounds trite and cliche, but Christmas, to me, is about family and love and the familiarity of traditions that have lasted for years and years.

Of course, there is always room for more traditions as our family grows to include more loved ones (like my husband and Mike's girlfriend).

This was a pensive and thoughtful holiday for me and it allowed me the opportunity to self-reflect.

So, amongst the wrapping and stockings and carols, I realized that it's the closeness and love I share with my family that's the true gift.