TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTS

Remember the commercial of the old man getting up early in the morning saying time to make the doughnuts? Think it was Dunkin Donuts, not sure though. Anyway, that’s it what it felt like Friday morning when the alarm went off at 2:30 a.m.  Sam and I did our “Breakfast with Santa” thing Friday morning, which means spending all day Thursday looking through sales papers, going over Christmas list from all four children.  I must add we really have great children who didn’t really ask for outrageous things. Steven wants a PSP, Jewel anything Tinkerbell, Jessica a scooter, Sage a pink Nintendo DS Lite, plus a bag of Dove candy. Once we had the kids’ lists and our list of gifts and stores in line we were all set for “Breakfast with Santa”.  See, on Friday after Thanksgiving our kids have been told we go eat breakfast with Santa, walk around the stores and show him what every kid wants and then give Santa some money to help pay for the toys, feed the elves, and reindeer food of course.

So 2:30 a.m. beep...beep…beep……….Quick shower, sales papers in hand, off to our first stop. JC Penney opened at 4 a.m. and had what I wanted!  Hey, I deserve a little something for getting up that early.  They had my George Foreman grill on sale.  At 3:30 a.m. I dropped Sam off at Target to wait in line for their 6 a.m. opening.  I went to the 4 a.m. opening at JC Penney and was out of there at 4:05 and off to Toys R Us for a 5 a.m. opening.  Got everything there and was out at 5:45 only to rush back to Target to meet Sam who was like 10^th in a line of 200.  All of a sudden the doors open and what a rush. Everyone took off running and I was cheering Sam on. Go baby, run baby, there will be a reward for you tonight if you get there quickly.  By 7 a.m. we had been to JC Penney, Toys R Us, Target and Old Navy.  Finally it was breakfast time--off to Chick Fil A for food and to strategize. Then off to Best Buy and back to Target. We got home around 11:45 a.m. dragging like you wouldn’t believe.

While waiting in line at 4:00 in the morning you meet some strange people, like the girls who just left a club and came to JC Penney just to get a free snow globe. They were probably having the most fun. There was the 50ish man who came from Dawsonville to buy a Christmas tree. Toys R Us was no different: a young couple behind me were in line for a Wii for his 65 year old parents who are addicted to his game. Then on the inside was a lawyer who was getting the Wii for his son.  The funniest part was he was arguing with his wife that they could afford a Wii off sale so what in the hell are we doing here at 5 a.m. I talked with a more reasonable mom who was just trying to give her children and get Christmas and not remortgage her home in the process. I told here we are both guaranteed a room with a view at the nursing home after standing in line for Hannah Montana.

All in all it was well worth the 2:30 a.m. wake up. I know we are going to have a lot of smiling faces on Christmas morning. We have maybe four more things to get and we are totally done shopping and it’s not even December yet!