Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas Eve Eve

Happy Birthday Sarah! Happy Birthday Stephen!

The cold weather continues.  Kevin photographed crystal formations on leaves and logs that neither one of us ever saw in New England winters.

Our stop at the grocery store for a few items this afternoon when we went to town on business turned into a shopping nightmare.  People must have left their Christmas dinner purchases until today.  We were lucky to find a parking space not too far from the front door and there was one trolley (cart) available in the outdoor rack - a hint of things to come.

Inside it was difficult to navigate the aisles. When we realized that the checkout lines were really long, we took our place at the end of the que (line) and I minded the trolley while Kevin continued to shop for incidentals.

You will notice how nice it is for the cashiers - they get to sit down.  What you can't see is that customers have to bag their own groceries.  It took getting used to, but nowadays it's easy, especially with two of us.

Once we had paid and left the store it only got worse.  When we returned to the parking lot I had no problem backing out of our space because shoppers were anxious to take it.  But the road out of the store complex to the main road was one lane, one way, and all traffic from the rows of the parking lot flowed into it. Twenty-five minutes later, that's right 25 minutes, we had traveled fifty yards, and were able to head home.  Ai yai yai!  It was painful.  But we did manage to arrive home just before the sun set and the air became colder.  Hungry deer awaited.

We have hung our stockings with care and are anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival from the North Pole.

Kevin and I would like to wish everyone a very

Merry*Happy Christmas and all the very best for the New Year!