Week Six - 12 weeks of Christmas challenge

SHOPPING!!!! Week six is about shopping! Oh man. Oh man. I'm not a big fan of the shopping. Oh, I do it. But lately I mostly order as much as possible on line and don't go out into the winter wonderland that is Phoenix in the winter! But because I am a good sport and because I think Keelie is awfully cool I'm going to do it! TODAY!

To do it there are several steps involved. I mean to actually start Christmas shopping.

Since I am one of those stay-at-home Grandma's with no "real job" the first step always involves my husband.

And today was the day.

We had planned to drive partway to Tucson to meet one of the sons and his girlfriend for lunch at the Cracker Barrel.

So I took along a legal pad and a pen and I told my husband we were gonna talk about Christmas on the way down.

...and, no surprise, I got the "look".

To which he replies, as he does each year, "give everybody 20 bucks and call it a day."

To which I reply every year "no way, be serious."

And then the negotiations start.

I make the list of people. He gasps in terror.

He closely questions many of the people on the list.

"Didn't we give them something for Christmas two years ago?" he says.

"Yes," I reply, "but they are my parents."

"Hmmmm," he sniffs, "well why is she on the list?"

To which I reply "she is our daughter."

And on it goes.

He tells me who to cross off and I make scritching noises with my pen but never actually do it.

And then comes the dreaded question.

"How much money do you want," he asks me. He asks me this every single year.

Now don't get my wrong. My husband is lovely and generous and kind and giving but he still goes into sticker shock. I sometimes think he has not actually bought ANYTHING since 1968 the way he reacts.

"14,305.00" I say.

He looks at me with raised eyebrows.

"11,500,00?" I say.

The eyebrows remain raised.

Hey, a girls gotta try! Right? And he did ask me. I mean, seriously, if you don't want the answer don't ask the question I say.

This continues as the price gets lower and lower.

Seriously, I keep expecting Howie Mandel to jump out and scream "DEAL OR NO DEAL?"

Which would probably scare the be-Jesus out of us and we'd wreck the car and then the whole point of Christmas negotiations would be pretty much over with.

But finally and eventually we get to the part of the conversation where I state the amount I really wanted.

Hee hee!

And now he is not so shocked because I started so high. Although I secretly harbor the fantasy that one year he will just say yes to my first ridiculously high number. As in "sure honey, you can have $14,305.00."

!!!! But that particular fantasy didn't come true this year again.

But he does agree to the real number! Woo hoo!

And can I just tell ya, this is a good trick. Try it sometime.

We conclude our yearly negotations and he tries to weasel his business gifts onto my budget.

Ha!

Fat chance of that!

But I pretend to write a bunch of stuff down on the list because I know for a fact he will forget this was part of what we discussed.

Hee hee!

And I know for a fact he doesn't read my blog so I am totally safe in sharing all my little Christmas budgetting tips with you.

But now I'm too tired to actually shop.

This hard-core negotation stuff can be pretty tiring.

So I'm going to take a nap.

Sigh...