Skip to main content

Christmas Eve at Midnight

I opened a bag of worms this Christmas, and I have a feeling that it is going to become a Christmas tradition:  we went shopping at midnight on Christmas Eve.  This isn't the midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, because as everyone knows, that's when Santa comes.  This is the midnight between Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve.

I had just a few last minute things to get (mostly food), and I didn't want to fight the crowds at the grocery store on Christmas Eve.  So, I told everyone that I was going to go shopping at 4 a.m., and would Johannah like to come with me?  John rolled his eyes which basically communicated to me that he thought I was crazy.  Glo was sad to not be invited, and Ethan just looked at me with disbelief.  The plan was set.

It was Sunday evening, and with no new episode of The Walking Dead (horrors!), we pulled out a game.  When we finally finished it at 11:45 p.m., John turned to all of us and said, "We should go shopping now."  Done!

We piled in the car at which point Glo informed us that she was hungry.  No problem--we can stop at McDonald's!  No, we can't, it's Sunday!  Not at midnight :-)  We arrived at Mickey D's at 11:57, and waited the three minutes in the parking lot before we pulled into the drive-thru.  By the time we waited for our smoothies to be blended, it was 12:02 and legal time to spend money again.  (Of course, I couldn't resist the no homework on Sunday lecture, and relayed, once again, John's story from medical school about waking up at midnight Sunday night/Monday morning to begin studying.)

Oh man, Wal-Mart didn't know what struck them!  The main rule I had was that nobody could change out of what they were wearing--spontaneity was the standard!

Ethan has been wearing his Santa hat non-stop through the season.  It was already on his head while playing games!  Don't you love the pajamas?

It was a beautiful thing--not a SOUL in Wal-Mart!  The store was OURS!  After getting what we needed, and several things we didn't, we headed to the toy section.  Not sure why, but this will become the biggest tradition of the night--riding kiddie bikes around Wal-Mart (with the extra bonus of wearing kiddie backpacks at the same time)!

Like John's "Angry Birds" backpack?
  I'm not sure we've ever laughed so hard in our lives.
Can you even SEE Hannah's bike?  It was micro sized!
  Ethan was a bit worried that the security guards would come after us, but I wondered if they would even be able to catch us on our speedy bikes!


Like I said, I have a feeling that this will become an annual tradition:  smoothies from McDonald's at midnight with a Wal-Mart chaser :-)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SURPRISE!!

When the pizza guy came to the door last night, here's what John saw: It took a few seconds for John to process who the pizza delivery man was, but when he did, he was incredibly happy (and couldn't stop saying "heeeeyyyyy....".  It was Jared Moran, John's best friend. And me, I just knelt down, right then and there, and began repenting of all the lies that I have told over the last four months, hiding this most amazing surprise :-)  I told Sarah the other day that I was glad to see the light at the end of the falsehood tunnel, because if I kept this up much longer, I was destined to end up in liars' hell... Jared ran the Air Force marathon with John last year.  It was his first marathon, and from what he told us, his last.  However, he called in June and said he was coming again, but I was supposed to keep it a surprise from John.  I'm not sure what changed his mind, but we sure are glad he did.  John hates runnings marathons alone, and ther...

Trail Run

Since Anna's blog is private (and inaccessible to most), I copied her post about her recent trail run.  She wrote about it much more philosophically than I did, and I love it. I'm so grateful that I have a body that allows me to run. Running has proved to work wonders for my stress, and for my physical and mental well-being. I've evolved into a new "Anna" through running and training for races.   This past weekend, I ran my first trail race. Going into it, I had NO idea what to expect. I actually thought it would be a nice path through a wooded tree area. Boy, I was WRONG! The trail included running through rivers, up and along such narrow pathways on the side of mountains, and through legit mud holes. It didn't help that I forgot to wear my Garmin GPS watch. Not only was I clueless to where I was running, I had no idea how far I had run and how much longer I needed go. The race became a total mental feat.   I could hear myself breathing heavily. I cou...

A Quick Trip to Mackinac Island

 Allow me a pity party for a paragraph.  As much as John is earning buckets of money for us and for our retirement, his weekend calls have been infringing on our time together.  Like I said, it's a complete pity party, because my logical mind reminds me that I should be happy he's making so much money, but my heart feels rather lonely at times as I reminisce about trips we have taken that we don't have time to take again. I love John.  I don't need him around all the time, but I find that the best quality time with him is when he doesn't have other distractions like work, and call, and hospital credentialing. Anyway, I guess that was two paragraphs, and I don't need to take it any further than that, because I don't want the body of this blog post to be about me and my loneliness. I've been wanting to go to Mackinac Island for two years now (I can hardly even believe that it's been that long since I was there).  With Lake Michigan getting colder and t...