Christmas shopping hell

There is a conspiracy afoot. One in which the Christmas holiday keeps moving up closer and closer to the beginning of the new year. I swear 2007 just started and here we are, creeping up on 2008 ALREADY!

Today, I embarked on a torturous journey. One requiring lots of patience and a "can do" attitude! Can you guess what it is? I know....the title was sort of a "foreshadowing" of sorts....

I spent 4+ hours shopping and succeeded in securing only ONE gift. ONE!!!! That's it!!! How does that happen??!?! It's called, I actually CARE! Believe it or not, I actually hand pick gifts for loved ones and friends instead of gift cards. I really wish I could be one of these people who gave away gift cards as "gifts", but I just can't get myself to do it. I scoured about 12+ stores....some located miles away!

I never realized there were so many perfume labels! Really....is there a difference between a JLo perfume and a Britney Spears? They're both washed up, uneducated trash who probably had no real input as to what went into their "signature" perfumes. I certainly don't care to "smell like JLo"....

Do you know what could possibly be the best store out there? The Container Store. A store completely dedicated to feeding the American frenzy of overconsumption by allowing us a way to organize all the items that we buy, but don't really need. I love it! Only in the States will you spend $100+ to create an "organizing system" to store the myriad of holiday themed kitchen items and fondue sets that get used once a year if they're lucky!

Don't get me wrong....I get sucked right into it as well! Somehow, I seem to be oddly attracted to snowman and Santa mugs, figurines, knickknacks, potholders, towels, etc, etc.....