Tuesday, December 22, 2009

gift giving (and getting) season!

Its been a while since i blogged anything that decided to pop into my head. Its the holiday season (yay) which usually means one thing … NO SCHOOL!!!! The good thing is that I passed with flying colours! The bad news is is that there’s only 2 weeks of holiday vacay (because of how exams are scheduled). BUT that's not the reason for this blog entry thing.  

It’s gift giving season! The only time in the year when malls are jammed packed with people and people are willing to seat their children next to (or on top of a) creepy old man in a costume. Competition is fierce this time of year especially in this economy (even though its steadily rising from the dawn); sellers are trying to get you into the store, buyers want to pay the lowest price possible. Its funny that all these stores have the wackiest gimmicks in order for you to drag you butt into their premises, but once your in there, its disappointment all the way. I think you all know what I’m talking about, such as ‘would you like to try a free sample?’, ‘I’m sorry but only selected items on sale’, ‘Sorry but it’s all sold out, and my favourite, ‘I’m sorry, the only sizes are the ones on display’.

Even though we as conscious wise consumers try to get the best gift at the lowest price (especially those who are broke) whatever we buy is NEVER the lowest price (unless you are those people who wait in front of the store before it even opens). I especially love the stores who say that the product is ‘on sale, for a limited time only’, but in real life, they just jack up the prices ever so slightly, probably to up their margins and what not. The worst things I find are electronics where you thought you got the best deal, but you haven’t, especially the fact that it either goes obsolete and the new model comes out a month after your purchase (considering that the return/price match/exchange policies are 30 days or less).

But there is a slight difference to the last days of shopping compared to last year, the malls are a little but not overcrowded, as in ‘this might be a fire hazard’ overcrowded. A few years ago, it would be packed, you were basically getting ‘acquainted’ with the person in front of you and ditto for the person behind you. The check out lines were snake like and usually take up 3/4 of the store, and the product you want is usually gone, or has been destroyed by who knows how. All I remember is that leaving the malls would be slow and painful, and it seemed like we were all headed for the slaughterhouse (mooo)!

Today, I finished getting gifts for my two closest friends. Usually, by definition, I am an isolated person, or in laymen’s terms, a loser … oww or better ye a loner! I learned from Social Networking class that people usually have 3 friends, and that’s already very isolated (which means no hope for me). Naw, I’m gonna be hosting a party next week, so I’ll get gifts for my other friends then, but these two I see them like every day, so its an obligation. Anyways, I didn’t have any boxes for these gifts because the stores decided to make nice flat boxes that can fit clothes and books, but i could never find any normal square box (unless they are a multi-pack if sizes I don’t need), so, I thought that I had these plain boxes at home that would fit, but I was totally wrong. So I compromised and wanted to freak my two friends out (btw after this posting, I might not have any friends) by using household boxes I found around the house.

For the sake of hilarity, I jammed one of my friend’s gifts with a cracker box (it was a unopened and my mom thought I was gonna use them to feed the squirrels) and wrapped it neatly with penguin wrapping paper. For my other friend,  decided to use the box that came with my bio-filter (for the aquarium) which is an added bonus considering that this friend was hinting soo much stuff she wanted to get and she doesn’t own an aquarium. Hopefully this experiment will not go overboard, plus I’m saving the environment by reusing boxes that just sat in the dark of my basement, waiting to be recycled in the blue bin.

I had too much fun wrapping the presents because for some reason the pattern on the wrapping paper made a funny design:

 

Stay tuned to see my change in friend count next!

1 comment:

  1. Connie!!!

    Congrats on passing with flying colours!

    I can't wait til you graduate so you can work fulltime for Scotia in the Reorg Dept. We could really really use your help here. I'm not exaggerating when I say we are drowning in paperwork becuz we are so understaffed.

    Happy New Year!!!!!!

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