I’m not having much luck doing Christmas shopping this year. Since I am trying to avoid certain death out there alone on the icy roads I thought I’d do some online perusing but quickly realized that there’s a reason I recently avowed never to shop for gifts online again!

For one, you can not judge quality without seeing and touching in person. You NEED a hands on experience to buy most things. The only time I have good luck lately is with certain brands that I know are generally always reliably high quality and with certain sellers I’ve bought from a few times and know their products are up to snuff.

Way too many times we end up getting poor quality materials, the wrong color, wrong size, broken, dented, missing parts, etc. which usually doesn’t happen when you shop in person. I mean unless you are completely inept it shouldn’t happen in person, right?

It’s not just gifts, though. I almost cried when we bought our new wrought iron bed last month online because while it shipped quickly and seemed to be packaged well, one piece was slightly bent so the predrilled holes in the frame weren’t matching up. So the hubs had to use a strap to winch the pieces together to bend them into place enough to get the hardware to fit and then it worked fine and looks perfect.

I was afraid we’d have to box it up and ship it back and wait weeks to get a replacement, which we’ve had to do with a few things. Not fun!

So we lucked out there and the best part is, it’s got an adjustable base so we can make it sit up and get a nice view out of the picture window at sunset…

…and in the mornings I can take in the view of the pups, the horses next door, the cows in the field beyond that and everything in between. I love my neighbor’s tree when it’s all icy. It’s so pretty!

If I didn’t have chores I had to do, I could spend all morning lounging in bed with my laptop, drinking coffee and watching the world slowly go by out there. It really makes it hard to get up now. 😄

So anyway, I did make a promise to myself to try to get back into the habit of shopping in person even though I hate driving, I hate crowds and I hate getting sick from breathing in all the random fumes and chemicals as I go from aisle to aisle and parking lot to parking lot.

But I have to get over all that because I want to get everyone something nice for Christmas and I don’t have time to mess around with returning faulty or shoddy goods. Which means I am going to have to drag everyone to the local stores this weekend and find out exactly what they like/want/need so I can go back and do some gift shopping without them.

Although…I might be able to weasel out of driving back into town by myself if I take notes of what they like/want/need and then just go online and order it… 🤔