The Holidays Are Coming!

Day One is behind me, only five more days to go before Chickie's "stay-cation" is over. I think she went to the Minnesota Zoo yesterday. If so, it would have been a very cold day for any of the outdoor exhibits since we seemed to hover below freezing all day. Apparently she fell in love with the fruit bats. I'm thrilled, since I think bats are awesome! 

I'm a big fan of bats in general, but fruit bats are essential to
the environment and they're having a tough time in many
countries. The bats we have up here aren't fruit bats, but
our bats eat LOTS of mosquitoes, so they're high on my list
of wonderful and amazing animals. 

Other than working, things have just been in a "settle down and concentrate on nothing until Turkey Day rises up and strikes us in the face (and the waistline)". Yes ... Thanksgiving is coming up quickly, and for those of us in retail, that means a day of over-indulgence followed by two days of sales - Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. 

I'm really not looking forward to my end of the year sales, and
figuring out my days off and on schedule will be a pain this
year since Christmas Eve is on a Sunday. 

Because of two days of sales, I need to get my email contact list pounded back into shape, enter the new names to the list, compose the flyer I'll be emailing out, and figure out what items I want to feature in this year's sales. I also have to figure out holiday hours, days closed, etc. And I'd better do all of this quickly, because ONG - it's already the 7th of November. That receding scream you're hearing is me screaming "Noooooooo" as I advance toward another holiday season. 

When I wasn't working retail, I used to decorate my house
in holiday decor. I would have pounced on an idea like
this. It's pretty cute! 

The part of retirement that I'm looking forward to the most is recapturing my holiday season. I haven't enjoyed a winter holiday, specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas/Solstice, since I opened my Mall of America location in 1992. Before then, we took days off, were closed on the weekends, and I had an opportunity to go out to the Rez and see the family every now and then. Now, it's an impossible time of the year where we're trying to make our sales numbers and listening to WAY too much holiday music. The joy has gone away from a holiday that sparkled for me when I was a kid. 

I would have loved decorations like this when I was a kid. Of course,
back then our lights were large, burned hot, and it was tinsel that
gave sparkle to the season. 

I actually think my best Christmas/Solstice holidays were in days when we really didn't have much money. I would get one or two gifts from my parents, and later, when I was with DH, we would get silly things so that we wouldn't need to spend our money on them during the year. Hair shampoo and conditioner were popular gifts for under the small tree. We get more elaborate gifts now, but there's not really a lot that I need/want. I'm pretty content. A Target gift card could take care of my wardrobe needs for the year. Maybe I'll start my "Christmas/Solstice Gift List" with one of those and see if Santa provides. 

Have a fantastic Tuesday. I'm just looking forward to ending yet another day at work and progressing on to Wednesday. Trying to shoe-horn in my laundry loads during a week where I work each day isn't fun, and I've had my clothes in the washer since I awakened shortly after 3:00 am. Of course they won't get put into the dryer until tonight, but at least one small step forward ... LOL.