Holy gift cards, Batman!!!

Today was Brian's 9/80 day, so we were pleased to have him home for the day. No big plans, besides maybe some Chrismas shopping, so we were looking forward to the day. We had our usual "Day off breakfast" at Panera, my personal favorite for people watching without the food poisoning threat of P Inn. You can't get too dangerous with coffee and a bagel. After seeing half of the church, we left and made our way to the Star 102.1 studios. See, when B and I were being starstruck radio geeks on Black Friday with Frank Murphy, we were encouraged to sign up for ticket drawings to various upcoming shows. Well, slap my back and call me Cosette, I won two tickets to Les Miz. The Brain and I went to see it in Roanoke when we were in college and I fell in love with it. My roommate and I sang "Stars" every night as we were trying to go to sleep and drown out the noisy neighbors. My parents have always loved the music but have never seen the actual show, so we decided to give them the tickets. Again, we were nosily starstruck as we saw our favorite radio personalities hard at work in the studio. As much as we wanted to peek, the boy wanted to ten fold. Luckily we kept him from jumping up and plastering his face on the glass. It would have made tweeting with them awkward. Anyhow, we made it out of there without getting humiliated. After our arrival back at the ranch, B and the boy went to school to have cruddy cheeseburger lunch with the girls and I went about knocking out a few more Christmas gifts. After stops at the Hobby Lobby and Harvest Town(yes, the liquor store to buy a hostess gift), I headed to Kroger to buy some gift cards. Teacher gifts and stocking stuffers are easily knocked out in the gift card section...AND fuel points are quadrupled when you buy gift cards until the 11th. Apparently everyone and their grandmother had the same idea that I did. One lady was even discussing a way to beat the system that Kroger and Shell have going by buying Shell gift cards and quadrupling their points then using the Shell card to then take the receipt back to Kroger and...oh I got confused after a while. It was way above my thinking of school teacher and choir director gifts for the kids. Well, I knocked out ten gifts with these:

Now mind you, I had already gotten two of these couple weeks ago. That being said I took my selected gift cards, egg nog,cereal and creamer to check out and lined up with lots like minded friends. I learned long ago it is futile get annoyed while waiting in the line. It makes the wait longer and the people around me much more hostile.  The  older couple in front told dear Barry, one of my favorite kroger friends, they been looking for cards for an hour. Their stack was enormous and I could not wit to see what was going to happen. After he scanned their 20th card, I asked if they were looking for any new family members and said I would be happy to help them out. They told me they had 28 grandchildren to shop for, God bless them. After Barry scanned everything, the register started making all kinds sounds rivaling R2D2 and spit out about ten yards of receipts. The total you ask? $810.00 or 3240 fuel points. Nice.  When I was done, I exchanged pleasantries and left. I hope they locked their car doors as soon as they got in...they had lots of interested eyes on them.  The weekend is here again. The kids are safely tucked into bed and we are winding down for the evening. Once tomorrow comes, the Christmas rush truly begins for us.  I just pray that we can keep perspective and celebrate the blessings we have been given. Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men and gift cards not necessary to experience joy.