According to my mother, today is a national holiday to be
celebrated with reverence. For today is the day after Christmas and
every female on the planet knows what that means.
Serious sales.
According to my mother, today is a national holiday to be celebrated with reverence. For today is the day after Christmas and every female on the planet knows what that means.
Serious sales.
Yes, on this day, everything, and I mean everything, is at least 40 percent off. That means that all those presents you spent your hard-earned money on last week are clearance priced today. That’s enough to make most shoppers depressed, but not my mother. No, instead it just encourages her to use her skills to buy more stuff, but at a discount.
Now, for those of you who have never shopped with my mom, allow me to explain. My mother is a world champion, professional shopper. Oh sure, your mother may shop too – but if they taught classes in conspicuous consumption, my mom would be an Ivy League professor and there would be a three-year waiting list, just to get into the shopping guru’s class.
In full shopping mode, mom is a wondrous sight. I have seen her go into Williams-Sonoma, ask for a coffee maker and before the sales person has returned from the back with it, my mother has managed to pile on the counter three kitchen towels in varying designs, two packages of hot chocolate mix, one package of handmade marshmallows in the shape of Santa, several water filters for the new coffee maker, two packages of Christmas coffee (one decaf, one regular) and 12 mugs with the New Year’s baby on them.
I’m telling you, people applauded. They’ve never seen a 60-year old whirlwind in the shop before. I think American Express has a statue in their office building, dedicated to my mother.
As you can see, this is a woman who takes her shopping very seriously. And, for her, the day after Christmas is the most sacred day of the year. On Christmas Day, after the dishes are done, my mom gets the newspapers and the map out. She reviews sales. She plans the most efficient routes for her attack.
And then, on Dec. 26, we rise early, eat breakfast and shop.
There’s no stopping for lunch. No snacking. Oh, sure sometimes mom will give in to my pleas and let me grab a coffee or a pretzel on the go – but that’s only if I can convince her that if I fainted from hunger, she’d lose several precious minutes of shopping while trying to revive me.
And the only rest my poor feet get is when I hide in the dressing room; pretend to try on about 50 outfits and really just collapse on the floor for a few seconds of uninterrupted napping.
It’s even worse when my youngest sister shops with us. Look, that girl inherited mom’s shopping gene and then some. I don’t how she does it. She’s like a bloodhound, sniffing out clearance racks. I’ve seen her in action.
She can be at one end of the mall, pleasantly window shopping, when suddenly, her whole body stiffens. Her nose points to the far end of the mall – to a store that I can’t even see from that far away. She sniffs. She considers. And suddenly, she’s off, shouting as she runs, “feng shui candles are 75 percent off.”
And darned if those candles aren’t there waiting for my sister to buy them. It’s amazing.
So today, as you sit around the house, eating turkey sandwiches and gobbling up the rest of the Christmas cookies, think of me. I’ll be at the mall, trying to find a dressing room with a nice, cushy floor to sleep on.
