My Kind of Christmas Shopping

I don't know about you, but I can skip the malls this time of year. I'm not excited about going to the strips of big box stores. And even though I love the occasional shopping excursion to the "home goods and all things semi-kitschy" stores, December is not when I find myself excursing there. 

Where do I love to go this time of year? (Okay... my immediate family and my close friends have a leg up on the competition when answering that...) 

I love Grocery Stores. 

And today was a great pre-Holiday day for me. Officially, I was shopping for what we need for tomorrow night's small cocktail and dessert party. Unofficially, I was spending 3 hours getting my Holiday spirit in gear. 

I started out in the wine section of a World Market. While I was there, I had a nice conversation with another shopper about when, during a party, you should serve a $5 bottle of wine. (We both voted that later in the evening was the best answer.)

Then I moved to SuperTarget for the lion's share of the groceries and a few kitchen essentials. Amazingly enough, I had a nice conversation with the kid at checkout. He was obviously new to retail, and had a rather rehearsed repartee, but at least he was making the effort as he bagged my purchase. 

Next stop: Cub for some coupon items we needed. This started out as a questionable experience when I couldn't find a hand-basket, and the lines at the registers were hugely long. But as I was doing the self-service checkout a very nice woman helped me get the coupons to scan, and I actually got a smile out of an older woman standing in the door waiting for her car. 

On the way home, I hit Lund's for some specialty cheeses and white chocolate. Lund's almost always beats the competition in the service department. Today was no different. I had a nice chat with a sample-pusher who was straightening up after being attacked by cheese cascading out of the case behind her. And a manager-type did a stock check for me when I couldn't find the white chocolate that I wanted. At check out, the woman who was bagging my groceries even struck up a conversation about my Gemar's Market reusable bag from my hometown grocery store. 

As I was hauling my 7 bags of groceries in from the car, I couldn't do anything but smile. There's nothing like an afternoon in four different food stores to get my Christmas spirit in sparkling. 

I know. I'm a bit odd. But at least I'm happy.