Advent: What are you avoiding this year?
I did a little Christmas-shopping over the weekend. This year, due to spousal unemployment, we're giving very practical gifts: clothing, sheets, and other boring necessities (yawn). Actually, J. grew up getting necessities -- he recalls getting snow tires for Christmas one year. His family was very practical, a point of pride for them. So I ended up in a long line in Bed, Bath & Beyond, the emporium of all earthly delights (honestly, I could browse there for days !). Ahead of me was a woman who seemed to be bringing home all those earthly delights -- every single one! She had two shopping carts filled with merchandise. Not only does this create a steering problem when you're the mistress of two carts, but it vastly increases checkout time for the humble souls behind you in line. It also doesn't help when you feel the need to dispute the price of nearly every sale item. But I digress. I'm not criticizing this woman's shopping strategy -- maybe she has 25 g