Christmas Dresses

I have decided that the longer you wait sometimes, the harder it is to find what you want. I have noticed for years that retailers are pushing earlier and earlier for consumers to start shopping. In years past I have thought, well I'll just hold out and then they will get the picture that it's too early. What actually happened was they didn't notice my one man effort and I went shopping to find empty shelves, dented boxes, and broken displays.

So for the last couple of years I have been starting early. I hate shopping when everything has been picked over and handled by every other shopper. My big Christmas shopping push is the day after Thanksgiving sale. I get a lot accomplished in just a few short hours. I don't go in with any big expectations, knowing there are limited items for the masses of people. I really go because my sister in laws and i have a great time at it. Lisa and I go each year and then sometimes Amanda joins us. Last year I learned that you can shop online and get about everything you want anyway.

One thing that I do not wait on is Christmas dresses. Every year I have been lucky enough to find the cutest dresses, reasonably priced. Three years ago when I found them, I waited. When I went back they were gone and couldn't find anything that was even close to acceptable. By the time I found something I liked I had to pay a ton (Well, what I consider a ton). So last year and this year in October, that's right, even before Halloween, when I find the perfect Christmas dress, I pick them up. Believe it or not, I have found dresses each year at Costco. Each year I fear that it will be the last year that I can put the girls all in matching dresses and then the next year I luck out. This year was no different, I did get one more year in, but I am sure it is the last.

The girls wore them to church 2 weeks ago for their program. I was going to make them wait until the Sunday before Christmas to wear them again, but decided what the heck. What good is a dress if you only wear it 10-12 times? I found their cute flowers in their hair at the Mistletoe Mall last weekend. the one in Aly's hair is really growing on me, I wasn't so sure about it at first. It has a red, black, and silver flower, with black and white polka dot feathers. The others are just red flowers with cute buttons in the center.

Ainsley was begging Will yesterday to put up the Christmas tree. Then last night we went shopping at Wal-Mart and they had one up. She decided to create a song to help plead her case, since Christmas trees were going up "everywhere". I told her that if we put the tree up now we would just end up having to dust it. She didn't care. She said, "Thats ok, we dust everything else." We listened to her song from Richfield to Glenwood before we had to shut her tune down.