Friday, December 9, 2011

How I Found the Christmas Spirit

We interrupt this regularly scheduled hiatus from blogging (while I try to maintain my sanity with all the craziness at work and the long, long list of to-do's for the holidays) to share with you how I found the Christmas spirit. I love Christmas, I really do, but let's all admit what every woman knows already... It's a whole lot of freakin' WORK. Add to that this is the busiest time of year for me at work, and you get one tired girl. The result of which is that I haven't really found the holiday spirit yet. Sure the lights up outside, but I haven't even wanted to put up the tree, but this afternoon I found the spirit.



You see, I took the day off work t0day to spend with my family in part to celebrate my Dad's birthday (yesterday - Happy Birthday again Dad!), even though we had a nice family dinner last night and all we did to spend time "together" was go to the casino where we all seem to go off to our own adventure. But, back to the point, so we get home from the casino and I have about two hours before the hubby will get home and a long list of errands to run: Michaels for some Armour Etch for some wine glasses for Lauren for Christmas, JoAnns for some Beacon's 3-in-1 glue for a project for a gift for someone to remain nameless, Petco for some kitty spray and shampoo for Zoey... Well you get the picture. I was planning to finish off at Kohl's.



Now I'm not a big Kohl's shopper, but I was flipping through the mail the other day (mostly junk) and found this coupon card for $10 off my purchase. I usually toss these, but then I remember Kohl's has toys. We have a toy drive at work and I thought $10 would go a long way toward a nice toy. So I pulled the coupon off and tucked it my purse. So that was where I planned to end up, but, honestly, when I was done with all the errands, I was really tired and running out of time, so I thought I would skip it. But then it seemed someone else had a different idea about how my evening would end. Turns out the traffic to the bridge was just awful so it seemed easier to go into downtown (where Kohl's is) to get on to the bridge. So I thought, well, since I have to go that way, I'll see if there's a good parking spot. If so, I'll stop. If not, I'll skip it and get on the bridge. Sure enough, the perfect spot in front of the door opened up. I pulled right in. That was my sign I was supposed to use the coupon.



I headed into the store and found the toy section. Holy moley, they had a bit sale and an additional percent off because it was a certain time of day. I picked up this remote control car at first and carried it around for the longest time, but it take 5 (5!) AAA batteries. Well, if you are hurting for money, batteries might be a bit of luxury, so I thought I better try to find something that doesn't require future contributions to continue to work.







There it was: a Barbie gift set. It was perfect for some little girl. I picked it up and walked to cash register. When all was said and done, the gift with $32.99 price (not that I would ever pay that), cost a mere $4.44. I was so excited to get such a great gift for so little money. Now my toy drive money will stretch so much farther this year. If the traffic hadn't been horrible, if the spot hadn't opened up, if I hadn't go that card in mail, none of this would have happened and some little girl wouldn't get the Barbie doll set (which I heard on the news is the most requested toy of this season by toy drives) she's been wishing for. If, if, if... That's when I realized that God was working through me today. I just paid attention to where He was pointing me to go even when I had already abandoned that path in my own mind. What a marvelous feeling.

S0 next time you go through your junk mail, don't toss the Kohl's coupon (thank you Kohls!). Maybe with a few extra dollars, you too will be able to make some child very happy on Christmas and find the spirit in yourself too.

No comments: