Well, the holidays are here and it has been exciting yet stressful at the same time. I had hoped to get my Christmas shopping done early this year, but the procrastination never fails. I was at the mall today with a list of things that I had hoped to buy. Walked into Macy’s looking for Nike sweat bands in the men’s department, but they didn’t carry those. Went to every cell phone case kiosk asking if they sold Olaf the snowman iPhone 10 cases and NOT ONE did! Hoping for better luck upstairs, I went to Things Remembered to look for an ornament frame which I wanted to engrave with my nephew’s name. Nope, nada. I have to say this has to be one of the worse mall excursions I’ve been on for my holiday shopping, to leave with nothing. Well no, take that back. I did walk away with a bottle of snowflake scented hand soap from Bath and Body Works for the bathroom! 🙂
So my sister has every collection of Ina Garten’s cookbooks, except one. Obviously, I was on the hunt for that book. Found it at Barnes and Nobles, but $35 retail price. Eh… Can you say, hello Amazon? Yeah, decided I was going to save myself a lot of time, money, and headache if I just purchased everything there.
The holidays has also been particularly stressful because my sister is due to have a baby in a month and recently tested positive for preterm labor risk. So she is to take it very easy, not even to take a 10 minute walk or pick up her 2-year old toddler. I’ve been over more often now to help her with my nephew, who unfortunately is rambunctious and has way too much energy. He makes eating, baths, and trips to the mall a huge challenge!
As I sit here thinking about the holidays, I think about how cool it would be to rent a stretch limousine and do a Christmas light tour around the neighborhood. I have a friend who rented a limo in Sacramento with a group of 10 and says they do amazing holiday light tours up there. Will have to make a trip to Sac one of these days to check it out. A limo would come in especially handy for a New Year’s Eve party in the City. San Jose Party Bus has been recommended to me by several friends who have had good experiences with them. I may consider it to avoid driving into SF myself, having to find parking and dealing with crazy drunk people on the streets. I can also avoid riding in dirty BART trains like I did 4 years ago and having to walk several blocks to the BART station in painful heels, which I ultimately had to take off and walk bare foot in the dirty SF streets. Oh the memories.