Christmas Shopping

Jay and Cade are on their 3rd day of Christmas Break. So far their days have been pretty busy.....Cade's shot off 24,000 rounds of imaginary ammunition and Jay's finished his Christmas shopping. On Monday Jay's truck had to go into the shop (Merry Christmas to us!!!) so Jay borrowed Jim and Sharon's truck and went to Springfield to finish his shopping. I can envision Jay trying to get through the very busy mall, looking for the perfect gifts, with Cade in tow. I should also mention Cade has a pair of Skeecher velcro shoes ( anyone who wants to comment on that is more than welcome to come and teach him how to tie his shoes) that are a little too big for him. I tried to get him to get a smaller size but he said they hurt his feet and wanted the size 3. I gave in to him because his foot had made a sizeable leap this summer and figured it wouldn't take long for the shoes to fit. Instead of his foot growing, I think the shoes are growing. He can't keep them on his feet. Jay had to stop three times in the mall so Cade could adjust his shoes...which is done at a snails pace. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm picturing the adjustment taking place in the middle of the aisle at the mall. Can't you see it?

Besides shopping for his gift list and making sure he made it home with his child, Jay also had another task to accomplish that day. He had to return a gift that I had bought for him, but decided not to give him. Yes, he is a good husband. Let me explain....On Thanksgiving day I had Jay look through the Sears flier for Christmas ideas. There was a large set of tools that he wanted and then there were some smaller things that he also liked. When mom and I got to Sears that morning I found the large set and contemplated getting it. Now, that was the day that my stone/cyst thing was kicking into high gear. It was 5:30 in the morning, I had an awful pain in my right side and I was looking at a box that was as long as I was tall and seemed to weigh 500 pounds. There was no way I was in any condition to manhandle that box on Friday. I felt that if I lifted it, whatever was hurting in my right side would probably explode. Even if I had been in perfect health I don't think I would've wanted to deal with it though the holidays - getting it in the house, wrapping it, putting it under the tree. Also, the fact that I was in my car (Pontiac G6) kept me from buying it. I don't think it would've fit anywhere except on top. Who wants to drive around the day after Thanksgiving with a box on the hood of their car? I made a decision - I love my husband, but the gift was not worth a hernia so I moved on to the smaller things on the list.

So now that you have the background story here's why Jay had to return his gift . I bought a smaller jack that he wanted, it still seemed to weigh 100 pounds, but I lugged it out to the car. On Saturday Sharon called because she was going shopping and wanted to know what I bought. She decided to get something similar so I needed to return the jack and get him something else. That was fine, I didn't mind at all, except I kept forgetting to return the stupid thing. It had been riding around in the trunk of my car since the day after Thanksgiving...I either would forget it or not have the receipt, etc. One day last week I realized Jay saw what was in the trunk. He's supposed to stay out of my car trunk during this time of the year, but he needed to load something for me. Once I realized it I said "well I guess you know what you're getting this year". He informed me he'd already seen it a dozen times. So Monday when he said he was going to the mall I half jokingly asked him if he wanted to return the jack. He said he might as well....I dug out the receipt and realized there were some other gifts on it. I gave it to him with explicit instructions not to look at it. Just hand it to the cashier and DO NOT LOOK AT THE RECEIPT. I don't know if he looked or not, but Jay had to return a gift that wasn't really a gift before Christmas while Cade was shooting every imaginary war plane in sight. Can you visualize it?