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Decorating for Christmas

Yesterday, my wife and I spent the entire day on Christmas. We'd started the day before by buying a lot of decoration-type stuff. (See the bags at the bottom of the photo:)


Then we cleaned out the area and got to work:


I started by putting the Christmas tree together:


Once that was finished, we started hanging lights.


Then we hung two colors of garland on the tree and attached the star to the top. That required vacuuming.


After that, the next normal step was to put on the ornaments and set up the Nativity ("crèche").


In the end, I thought it looked very nice:


Later, we bought a tree skirt and added that into the mix.

To see all of the photos from yesterday, please click here. To see a full slideshow of the progression of the decorations, click here. (All the photos in this slideshow were taken from the same spot and with a tripod, so I think you'll like the effect...)

Once that was finished, we had a lunch of hot dogs, and then headed out of town. We drove south to Round Rock (taking a different route that shaved 15 minutes off our time!) and went to Ikea. There, we bought Christmas presents for a family member.

In the same shopping center, we visited REI (sporting goods store), looking for more presents, but the store was kind of disappointing if you've ever been in a Bass Pro shop. After a stop at Sally's for some beauty supplies for my wife, we drove a mile or so to the premium outlet mall in Round Rock. There, a couple of more presents were purchased, at Calendar Stop (a game store with a few calendars on the side).

Though it was cool and windy, we stopped to get a couple of scoops of ice cream at a stand in the mall.

Then we returned to Killeen, car already half full of presents. We went to the mall, making purchases at Sears (though we looked at about 20 stores). We also went to Big Lots to pick up the tree skirt and a few other items, and then to K-Mart to finish our shopping spree. Yes, K-Mart was the only store that had two of the items we were looking for, which kind of surprised me.

By the way, we actually planned to visit multiple stores and spread money around like that. I got so tired of the last town I lived in, where there was basically only one store where you had to buy everything. And it was Wal-Mart. Not only is it nice to have choices, but we feel it's our responsibility to spread our money between all those choices, so they'll all stay in business.

And it's really nice that Killeen has everything so close together (unlike Oklahoma City), so you can visit 20 stores without driving forty miles.

We ate Chef-Boyardee for supper, because we came in too late for either one of us to cook.

Today, we wrapped presents, deposited a check (we finally closed my old Seminole bank account), dropped some old clothes off in a donation box, and then spent the afternoon playing board games (I lost the Game of Life to my wife, which shouldn't surprise anyone who knows her).

We capped it all off with supper at Denny's and a Netflix movies.

And yes, it's very apparent to us how precious these moments are. We're cherishing every day we have together. We're very aware that this might be the first and last Christmas that's just the two of us.

(None of the companies mentioned in this blog post have provided or offered any compensation to the writer/owner of this blog.)

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Christmas Shopping

Today, we did a little Christmas shopping; not so much for presents, but mostly for decorations.

We tried a few stores for our tree (attempting to avoid Wal-Mart), but finally had to get the tree at Wal-Mart because the other selections just weren't that good or were far too expensive. For instance, Hobby Lobby tried to sell us a $1,000 tree. Seriously. Get real, Hobby Lobby. We got a perfectly good six-foot artificial tree for $40.

At Big Lots, we purchased tree ornaments to go with the small collection I have from my childhood (hand-made, or ones that were gifted to me). We also got a small, inexpensive set of lights, and garland.

The trouble came when we tried to find a Nativity Scene (my wife calls it a "crèche.") None at Wal-Mart, none at Big Lots, and really expensive ugly ones at Hobby Lobby.

We saw a Family Christian Store near the Killeen Mall, and decided to try there. It was a tiny store, but looked nice. They had a couple of Nativity Scene sets. One was exactly what we were looking for, but no price was listed, so we went to the counter to ask about the price.

One couple was in front of us, buying one item. The cashier asked for their phone number, as many stores are in the bad habit of doing now. The guy didn't know his phone number, so he thought about it a while. The woman with him finally started going through her phone's contacts list. That took a while. After they gave the phone number, the cashier asked for their address. Then the cashier asked if they wanted to join some savings club and get a membership card. They did. That took a while, especially when the cashier started explaining the various benefits of the club. "You'll get a choice of these items at half-price, every time you come in." She started describing the numerous items as the line piled up behind us.

After 10 minutes of this, we left. I later found the item online, and it was $90 (more than we would have wanted to pay anyway, but we might have).

I know that in the past, I've complained about companies that try to help too much (Mathis Brothers, in Oklahoma City, was the store I mentioned then), but this store was trying to help too little. Either way, it's a bad business practice.

First of all, you can't sell me stuff if you spend 10 minutes yapping with the customer in front of me. They were buying a $10 item, while we possibly would have bought a $90 item. Secondly, you don't need my phone number and mailing address to sell me any item. And most importantly, you lost the possibility of a longtime customer. We plan to live here for many years, and the chances that we'll buy Christian-oriented items are high. But the chances that we'll buy it at Family Christian Stores are now zero.

We went on into the mall and finally found a Nativity set we liked in JC Penney for $16. So there.

It rained all day and was about 40 degrees. My favorite weather.

For supper, we picked up a large Little Caesar's pizza for $3.99 on a Tuesday special (regular price, $5.55). Now I can't believe that I ever paid $17 for a Pizza Hut pizza. But then again, that was our only choice in Seminole. It sure pays to live in a larger town with more choices.

(None of the companies mentioned in this blog post have provided or offered any compensation to the writer/owner of this blog.)