Lucky Shopping and Seeing Double Santa's

First, I must apologize for slacking off so tremendously for these last few days. I really don't have much of an excuse, just busy with Christmas broo-haha. This weekend we checked out the parade 1 town over to see Santa, a parade which involved the towns emergency vehicles, various sized horses, the middle-high school's marching band, a freaky giant Frosty marching alongside an equally freaky giant green Christmas tree and of course, the big man in red himself. Actually, we saw 2 Santa's. It was the strangest thing, first one Santa comes riding by with Mrs. Claus by his side and then about 4 minutes later another Santa goes riding by with yet another Mrs. Claus by his side. What? I immediately looked at the kids. Surely they would notice that this was a different Santa. Hell, you could look further up the road and still see Santa #1. But they didn't even seem to be fazed, waving and yelling "hi Santa." So weird. I think children just have such blind faith in the magic of Santa that seeing him twice didn't seem at all unusual. After the parade we ambled over to the tree lighting with everyone else but I had a rare burst of super-smartness and continued over to where we could visit with Santa. Actually, while one Santa was heading up the tree lighting, another was already getting ready to receive children on his lap. Ah ha, double Santa's strike again. We ended up 3rd in a line of about 100 kids to sit on Santa's lap. Jack and Abbey had their picture taken (see above) and even got to deliver their letters in person. So frickin' cute and made that much better by the 100 families we passed on our way OUT the door all waiting their turn.

The weekend got even better when my mom (who has been blessed with the gift of bargain shopping) took me to get my Christmas purchasing started and it rocked. I got tons and tons accomplished. Usually when I go into a store I kind of wander around in a disoriented fashion, ending up purchasing things I don't even need, or a bunch of gifts for people I don't even give to. We went to, well, I am not going to name the store because then people will know where I got their gifts, plus it might shed a little "clue" to where I live which my husband is strongly against. Safety first at all times, that's his motto. But the prices at this place were fantastic. I even got some stuff for myself, lets just call it an early Christmas gift to moi. Suggested retail value for my new clothing, $156.99. MY price, $44.95. $48 pants from the Gap, $12.99. Levi Sweater for $36 and I found it for $8.99 (so I got 2 of course). Ahhh, I do love Christmas.