It’s Christmas Eve. A day for crazy things like going to the grocery store. I don’t recommend it. I managed to survive, but it was touch and go.

I remember when I was a teen and even a young married person. I wanted to get out in that crazy Christmas shopping mob. I felt like THAT was where it was at!  If you wanted to really experience Christmas, you had to go out and shop like a lunatic and fight mobs and spend a ton of money. That’s how it is in the movies, right?

I think part of the appeal was that I was always broke. I had no reason to go fight the mobs because I would instantly lose on the fact that I couldn’t actually buy anything. I just watched from a distance and dreamed of the day when I would have enough money to go into debt at Christmas time.

When I lived in Florida, I remember a certain Black Friday sale at WalMart. They had advertised laptops for $100! That was quite a deal back in the day. Everyone was going to hit that sale. People lined up in the parking lot, camped, hunkered down for the long wait. I was still broke, so I was home in bed sleeping. Lame. The stories of the event vary, but the basics were that WalMart actually had only ONE laptop shipped to them for the sale. Fights broke out. People were jumping over other people, punches were thrown. It was a circus! All that Christmas cheer and I was home asleep, missing it all.

Sometimes less is more. Less stress over shopping means more time with family and friends. Less hurry at the grocery store on Christmas Eve because you just ‘wanted’ to make more peanut butter popcorn means more conversations with nice people in line. Less money to spend means more creativity and selective gift giving. Less focus on Santa means more focus on the real meaning of Christmas; the birth of the Savior.

I can do with less. I did leave the grocery store with a full load, but I also spent not one moment complaining about the wait, the weather, the prices, or the guy in the next line that had a funky smell. It ended up being a pretty pleasant experience.

That being said, I will not be going shopping again for at least four days.

Cause I said so.

Photo credit: http://www.colourbox.com