After Christmas Sales

Beth Gallagher

Beth Gallagher

Well-known member
I used to love plundering the stores after Christmas, hoping to find deals on decorations, gift wrap, etc. Now I have zero interest in braving the crowds and we have more decorations than we'll ever need. The last time I recall going to a store to look for cheap gift wrap we went to a Walmart. It appeared that every trace of Christmas stuff had been whisked off the shelves and no "bargains" to be found.

Anyone still look forward to the after Christmas sales?
 
We usually do after-Christmas shopping, but we opted to skip it this year as well. We have our eldest child and her family here, so we are staying in. The weather is snowy too, so that contributed a bit to the decision, and our daughter's family is using our car, so we are driving the truck.
 
Nope. No interest at all going out into the madness. Years ago, I would go to Dillards after Christmas day. In the kitchen area, people would be breaking glasses and plates reaching over other people trying to grab items. Most of the store looked liked a bomb went off after a few hours of people digging through housewares, clothes, ornaments, etc.
 
I have never liked going onto the crowded stores, either for the regular Christmas shopping, like Black Friday, or for the after Christmas sales. It used to be that going into the stores was the only way to get those bargains, and I remember doing it sometimes when my kids were growing up.
Some years, i worked at the Christmas tree lot in Spokane and on Christmas Eve, after the lot was officially closed, the kids sold trees to last minute shoppers.
They had that money, plus whatever they got from grandparents; so I always took the kids in to buy whatever they wanted to get with their Christmas money.
They loved the sales, too, and that they could buy things that were not affordable before the closeout.

My mother used to go to Spokane after Christmas, and she shopped for the beautiful Christmas ornaments that were on sale at the big department stores, like Bon Marche and The Crescent. Since we always left the Christmas tree up until my birthday in January, we were able to put the new ornaments on the tree right away instead of saving them for the next Christmas.

Now, we can shop most of the closeouts online, but there is really not anything that I need; so I browse, but seldom buy anything, and try to avoid going to Walmart for anything until well after New Years and all the shopping days are over.
 
Krystal Shay said:
Nope. No interest at all going out into the madness. Years ago, I would go to Dillards after Christmas day. In the kitchen area, people would be breaking glasses and plates reaching over other people trying to grab items. Most of the store looked liked a bomb went off after a few hours of people digging through housewares, clothes, ornaments, etc.
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Dillard's is having a big online sale. Just sayin. 😬 🎁
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Anyone still look forward to the after Christmas sales?
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Nope. Cindy couldn't pass up a Sale. Any Sale. And she never bought one of anything. When we got together 27 years ago, she told me about her very abusive late husband when we were talking about how neither of us were ever going to get "Legally" Married again. After listening to her talk about him, I decided I was never going to tell her no about anything she wanted to do unless I absolute had to. So it was kind of my own fault, I created a shopping monster. But I did tease her about having Terminal Spenditis, and how she was going spend us into the poor house. But she did get good deals on stuff. She never quit spending my money though, and I never tried to force her to. I could have close the credit card account, but I didn't because I gave her my word and I kept it. I never told her no.

But it wasn't all in vain. Just before Christmas in 2022, she bought about $300 worth of our favorite red meat, Tri-Tip. We usually cut in into steaks, diced it for stews or soups and ground it for hamburger, and we kept a few for the BBQ. And she bought $200 worth of Chiken. All that, plus a bunch of other stuff, two turkeys, pizza toppings, ice cream, etc. When I was in the hospital, and my son and I were being moved here, my daughter and he two roommates (I call them her boy toys) were going to take too long between putting our freezer in the truck, cleaning out our storage unit, etc. So I told her to take it all the Battered Women's Shelter, and donate in Cindy's name. She said they couldn't believe that. And I made sure I told her to them all the meat was fresh, she had just bought it before Christmas, which was a month before.

Anyway, since we're talking about Christmas, sort of, here's a Christmas memory for you...

After 13 years of Christmas at home, we started going somewhere for the time the kids were out of school on Christmas break. On this particular year we went to Redding, California and were staying at our favorite vacation hotel. On most days they had a great hot breakfast and around 8:00p they would have a light dinner. But it was Christmas Eve, and there was no dinner. We had planned to drive to Lassen Volcanic National Park. We knew the road through the park would be closed, but we could get to Manzanita Lake, the only part of the park that was open. The kids we wanted to play in the snow on Christmas Eve.

Before we left we were going to set up the Crock Pot with some Tri-Tip and all the rest of the stuff Cindy always put in it. Then we saw something new in the room. On the door was a sign that said No Cooking. So we made a deal with the desk clerk, who was actually the Front Desk manager. We had nown her since out second Anniversary. We took all the stuff down to the Dining Room, set it up, she would watch it for us all day, and when we got back we all sat down to a nice bowl of Tri-Tip Stew. She told us the smell of that stew cooking was disappointing people all day. They would walk in and smell it, and say "Oh, they are having dinner tonight." And she would tell them "No, I'm sorry, it's a private party."

None of us were sorry when we started eating... 🍲 ☺️

Edit: I Really need to Proof Read better.
 
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My grandma, who was the Ultimate Queen of sales, absolutely refused to shop for a couple of weeks after Christmas.

She was convinced that the merchants put everything out that they couldn't get rid of during the year and that you were getting "second-rate goods".

Come the January "White Sales" and she was downtown again, digging for bargains.
 
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