Yesterday was heaven

It's been a long time since I felt the joy of Christmas quite like I did yesterday. After dropping off JT with the sitter we set out for the mall to do some shopping. Any other day I hate shopping, especially at a mall, but yesterday was completely different. Both of us were in high spirits, the rest of Austin seemed mad at the world. The parking lot was mad crazy with cars fighting for spots on the way out, honking at each other, giving the finger, scowls instead of smiles. We found a spot and walked our way up to the doors, hand in hand and smiles bright enough to light the night. We took our time walking through most of the department stores until we got inside Nordstrom's. We couldn't stomach the idea of $260 dollar jeans. I'm a cheapskate by nature and feel sick when I spend more than 25 dollars on one item of clothing. And here the cost for that pair of jeans would provide 50 pounds of food here in the states for 37 kids for a month. Think about that... We picked up candles, a new outfit for Kevin, a couple pieces of chocolate, some new slippers for me and an outfit for JT. We also made a side trip at Hobby Lobby and went crazy buying snowmen for me. I've never had a "thing" that I did for Christmas and I wanted one. I picked up a cute little door hanging snowman the other day and now I can't keep my eyes off them. So I decided my Christmas theme would revolve around Snowmen. We've got a good start and can now add to the group each year. I'm excited! Plus, everything Christmas is 50% off. I bought a tree topper the other day but it was too heavy for the little table tree we have. We scoured the store for angels but would you believe every angel in the ornament area had it's wings broken off? That's practically criminal. On our way to the checkout we looked down one more aisle and finally found a tree topper we agreed on - not an angel, but a finial. Or as I prefer to call them, the sticky up kind. We walked by the stockings and I suggested buying matching stockings for the family. I worried that Kevin would think that was uber cheesy but he like the idea, too. Little did we know until we hit the checkout that they were thirty bucks each! Thanks be for the 50% off - we were able to justify $15 for lifetime stockings that would be used year after year in tradition. We picked up JT around 10:00 after eating dinner with friends and headed home with Christmas music playing the entire way (I love that about Kevin). We emptied the car and tuned the radio in the house to the Christmas channel and starting lighting the candles, putting up the stockings and tree topper and wrapping presents. We wrapped up the outfit we bought JT, the one Michelle bought for him in MN and his Cowboys items so he could entertain himself with the wrapping paper while the rest of us opened gifts on Christmas. I looked over in the middle of wrapping and saw Kevin with a slight smile on his face. We locked eyes for a few minutes until we both fell out into a full smile. We didn't have to say a word, the feeling was the same for the both of us.