Christmas Shopping Adventures

Despite my plan of trying to shop throughout the year for Christmas gifts, I have found myself short a few items this year. I think it has a little bit to do with our budget, the horrible gas prices of the summer and fall and two vacations within seven months of each other...it tends to limit available resources for shopping.
So this November I found that I had nothing in my gift box for Ian. I can honestly say, this has never happened before. I always have a gift or two for him in my gift box! This meant that I needed to look at all the Christmas ads, especially the Black Friday ads. I really don't like Black Friday. I love some of the great prices, but I hate the crowds, the deranged morning hours that they choose to start these sales and the general chaotic scene that ensues. Unfortunately, I found that Walmart had a gift that Ian would love, a Lego Castle. Normally $100, it was on sale for $50. So I discussed the situation with Colin and I made plans for him to be at Walmart by about 4:45 am (I told you I don't like the crowds, not to mention early mornings). I had a short list of things for Colin to look for, a game for my nephew Andrew and some other things, but the castle was the main thing. Alas, it was not meant to be. Walmart had put the castles somewhere other than the Lego aisle and by the time Colin located them, the last one was going in to another persons cart. Colin did manage to find the game and an external drive that his dad had asked him to pick up. He headed home so we could drive to the bigger city to go to a couple of other sales and to Group Health so a doctor could look at my lovely new case of pink eye.
We went to Walgreen's so I could pick some webkinz on sale. It turned out to be an okay sale as they were the super small webkinz, not the normal sized ones. We also went to Hallmark so I could get their new singing snowman. While we were at Hallmark, Ian spotted the regular Webkinz and fell in love with a dolphin. Of course, I couldn't buy it with him standing there, so I made plans to go back on Wednesday. I went back to find that it had been sold and that all the Hallmark's in the area were sold out of the dolphin webkinz. They took my name and number and told me they'd call if they got one in.
So when I got home last night I tried looking for it online. It was either sold out or it was an outrageous price ($29.95 for something that was $13.98 at Hallmark...not a good deal at Amazon). So I posted my frustration on my Facebook status and my friend Kitsel responded saying that the pharmacy in her town had a great selection and did she want me to check? I said yes and she checked and they had it! So I will get it from her when I see her at my next Bunco game!
I am going back to my shopping throughout the year! This last minute sale shopping and wondering if the store will have what you want in stock is seriously stressful!!!
Oh, I was at Walmart today and they had two of the castles just sitting on the shelf! Don't you just hate that? The good news is we did get a pretty cool Lego set for $50 thanks to Colin's mom being at another Walmart that didn't even get one of the Lego castles. They said they would make a substitution, so we snatched that up!
I hope the rest of my shopping works out better than these past adventures. I don't think I can stand any more stress!