I ran my errand this morning, got some things squared away. As part of the errand, I found out that I’m 12 pounds lighter than I was at the end of my junior year of college. Could be good, could be bad. But right now, I think my weight is not so much a reflection of my healthy lifestyle, so much as a reflection of my lack of eating and overload of working.

I should start running on the treadmill again, once I figure out what’s going on with this working thing.

Though yes, I am frugal, I think there’s a good deal of insanity that goes into the Day After Thanksgiving^TM shopping.? But, I’m coming from the perspective that I don’t like crowds.? My dad can be really frugal: shopping at both Big Lots and Marc’s; but, he got to a point where it wasn’t worth it to save $.63 and sit through long lines of people and deal with the crowds at some of those places.? And I relate.? I won’t go to Marc’s anymore, which is crowded, and a mess (all the freaking time); and I won’t drive the 4 miles to Wal-Mart to buy toiletries, when a round-trip to Drug Mart is 20 minutes away.? I’m willing to pay a little more money to not have to deal with some of the bullshit.

Last year, my mother and I left the house at 5 in the morning to shop at the Ann Taylor outlet store for the Day After Thanksgiving^TM.? And while we did get a lot of good deals, I can’t say that the Ann Taylor clothing has served me any better than the $24 sweater I bought at Marshall’s about a month ago.? And [Retail Job] has sales all the damn time, so to me, it’s not worth it to get an extra 5% off of something at [Retail Job], and have to deal with all of the Day After Thanksgiving^TM bullshit.

My feeling right now is this: if I can’t buy it online, or I can’t regularly get it in a store other than the holidays, I am not fucking buying it as a Christmas gift.? I have no idea what I’m getting anyone for Christmas, other than my mother, but that’s only because I saw it for her in the Lillian Vernon catalog.? I’m also only getting things for The Boy, my mother, my father, and my brother.? I just cannot afford to give Christmas gifts (so to anyone who knows me in RL, don’t feel obligated to get me anything either, I won’t take offense).

Every year at Christmas, I feel like a turd because I can’t afford to give gifts.? I can remember in grade school, when Claire’s would offer little gift boxes full of shitty accessories for $10 a box.? I wasn’t exactly the star of the social scene, so I didn’t get gifts for anyone, but there were 25 girls in my graduating grade school class, so I’m guessing that approximately $500 was spent amongst all the girls exchanging gift boxes from Claire’s that year.? I could not afford that, and I know that those girls couldn’t either.? But the main difference between those girls and I was that those girls had parents who would pay for that so that they could cement their social statuses.? In my case: why waste the effort? I wasn’t going to undo 6 years of torment in one Christmas, and I didn’t want to pay for my social status anyway. [Ironically, three of the girls who had tried to make amends to the 6 years of torment added me as
Facebook friends, and I, being both spineless and semi-forgiving, just added them to avoid the angst.]

How did I get here?

I guess the point I’m going to make is this: I’m going to get four gifts this year, and they are going to be thoughtful, things that said person needs/wants, no surprises, and I’m not going to break the bank, nor am I going to go apeshit with frugality.? I’m going to treat gift-giving like a birthday for four people.

I’ll spend my Christmas celebrating by being my repressed Martha Stewart-self: decorating for the holidays, cooking, and being a gracious gift-receiver (and, by golly, I am going to send both timely Christmas cards and thank-you notes).