The Gift

At church today, Pastor Cole was sharing a story about how he had braved an ice storm to find his daughter a Dora the Explorer play house. This wasn't an easy task, as he is from the south and he was pretty clueless about driving in Wisconsin winter weather.

So the irony isn't wasted on me that I now have my own story like that...

Back in August, we were gone on vacation. While we were gone, enjoying the cottage up north, our 15+ year old water heater decided it was a good time to burst. I'm sure the cats found it "lovely" jumping over the "lazy river" in the basement to use their cat boxes... or just improvised.  (uncomfortable cough here). The water heater not only made a nice river through the basement, it destroyed some of our items.  Among them... 19 stuffed animals.  Yes, really... 19 stuffed animals.  There were many of them in the basement as we were beginning to have the kiddos start weeding some out and start trying to thin out the herd that sleeps with Princess.  Our insurance graciously agreed to reimburse us the 19 stuffed animals for an estimate $20 an animal (plus tax).  So if you can do the math... that's like $400 worth of stuffed animals!  Now, I didn't originally buy all of these damaged stuffed animals, but after looking online, it did seem that the average stuffed animal (of mid-size) was really somewhere between $20 - 30.  I know, crazy right?

Well, we didn't want to have all 19 stuffed animals in our house again. So we did buy 19 stuffed animals (actually a few more than that because of the buy one get one free deals). We thought it would be nice to give some away as gifts and donate several of them. We even have a few stored up for Princess's birthday in April.  (Cause really, what do you do with 19 stuffed animals!?!?!?).  Of these 19+ plus animals that arrived in our home, many of them were pillow pets.  I asked my kiddos which ones they wanted (as Santa would be bringing them this year).  Princess wanted a Unicorn --  but her friend had it -- so then it was the purple/pink butterfly.  Mr. Handsome wanted the Red Dragon.  Peaches choose the Penguin. So we ordered those and countless others.

Boxes and Boxes came.

More Boxes.  Mostly filled with.... Pillow Pets.

Then this week, Princess has been on and on about wanting a ZEBRA pillow pet!!!  I nearly fainted. Of all the varieties that I had bought, I didn't buy a ZEBRA one!!!  You have to be kidding right?  Oh no, that is the one she is determined to have and will ask Santa for.  So to not be a Grinch... I decided to find the Zebra and exchange it.  The only problem is... I can't find an 18" ZEBRA pillow pet!  I went to two Targets, two different Kohl's and even braved Walmart!  Nope. Nope. Nope.   Then I thought to myself, why don't I look online and see if I can get it shipped quickly.  First I looked at Target's website.  Sure, I found it on the web, but it had the message "Available in stores". UGH!! Ummmmm.... NO!!!! I looked in TWO of your stores.

Never fail... perseverance will pay off.

I found it on Kohl's website with a delivery date prior to December 24th. So now, please keep your fingers crossed for me people.  It has to arrive.

Santa cannot be late!

What is your most memorable Christmas shopping experience?