As I get older, I notice more things than I used to – especially after the broken leg experience last year.
Not only am I more conscious of others around me, but I’m also painfully aware of how I’m seeing common decency and manners go out the window as we count down the holidays.
With Thanksgiving this week, we’re at roughly a month before Christmas and only a week before December actually starts.
If I’ve learned anything in my past working as a retail employee, it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.
Take for example the annual mad dash for sale-price items known as “Black Friday.”
Honestly, the lack of consumer-driven madness to save a few bucks was the least missed part of the COVID-19 Pandemic years.
Personally, our family hasn’t participated in the early-morning and weekend-exclusive sales that follow Thanksgiving.
We’re more into online shopping from the comfort of home and arranging a curbside pickup if need be – instead of dashing for the last cart in the store or waiting in line for nearly an hour to save a minuscule amount of money.
Not to mention, since my sister works for an online retailer, she’s always working for them rather than taking part in the hunt for deals.
All in all, I’m glad we’ve moved past that and get to spend more time at home than among the capitalistic hustle and bustle.
My sister came home just in time last weekend to have a few nostalgic flashbacks when we headed to Craftex for Christmas inspiration.
She doesn’t remember anything about that crafting wholesaler, but I’ve been there with mom a few times already and can still readily recall my childhood memories spent in the packed business.
As somewhere between an arts and crafts supplier and a unique home décor warehouse, Craftex is full of things I didn’t see a need for and a fair amount of items that made me want to start researching possible crafting projects for the near future.
However, this time, we were rewarded with a chance to check out the recently expanded Christmas warehouse featuring a variety of trees, wreaths, and garlands to choose from – thankfully, we settled on none of those items.
But, we were pleasantly surprised and definitely awestruck at the sheer volume of Christmas decorations and crafting supplies available to us at Craftex.
I had to hold mom back from buying everything she saw and spent over an hour giving my opinion on ribbon and glass ball ornaments while my sister and mom debated on which theme tree we’d be putting up in our living room this year.
Those discussions led to me having to remind mom she promised that we could decorate with our “Frozen” theme this year – it’s been a few years since we had those ornaments on display.
Plus, I reminded her that our living room tree was nine feet tall and there was no way we could cover it in a new theme without buying many more ornaments or making a mess of the ones we have now.
We did however leave Craftex with a dozen rolls of ribbon, a few niche ornaments, and things for my sister to use in creating gift boxes for her coworkers.
By press time, we’ve got our two main Christmas trees up inside and fully decorated, which means we’re free to spruce up the mantles and make other holiday displays both indoors and out as long as the weather holds this week.
