CDs from a Customer

 

A sweet old WWII veteran just gave me CDs of his 2 favorite movies, "Ant Man" and "The Nativity Story."  I was at my cash register and he pulled these CDs out of his jacket pocket to hand over to me.  He said he thinks I would like them.

Christmas at Work

Life at home hasn't been great. I want it to be, but it just isn't. I spend a lot of time between two jobs to put myself in a different place.  

Tonight was a pleasant surprise that my retail job put a Christmas tree up in the breakroom. I don't have one up at home this year. It was even nicer that each of us had a Christmas stocking with a candy cane in it. 

Mimi is my childhood nickname.  So, looking through the tree, I found my nickname written on a stocking.  How thoughtful. 

The funny thing about Christmas time shoppers, from a retailer point of view, is that it's supposed to be about giving more than receiving.  It's supposed to be a joyful time of year.  We have some of the most impatient people with horrible attitudes toward some of the employees sometimes.  This is the commercialism part of the holidays that I so very much wish would disappear.    

Some parents send their kids off to go play in the toy section while they shop.  Some people open up products and try on the good-smelling stuff and then not buy it.  And then young adults do things like make every noise-making toy go off. I had just cleaned the toy area and organized everything.  I was called to back up a cashier and then was released to take my break, only to find someone had taken my hard work and put them on the floor. 

'Tis the season.

  

Christmas 2014

This Christmas my brother invited his wife Kathy (they'd been living apart) and my sister invited her new boyfriend Geoffrey for Christmas.  

BC Company Christmas Party

 

There are 3 locations of the particular company I work for.  All 3 locations got together at the owner's house for a Christmas party.  I won a tower (the largest gift) of desserts.  Santa Claus was there.  Everybody was having a good time.  We all were forced to take off whatever socks we had on to put on festive socks that waited for us upon entering the door.

Upcycled Ribbon Spool

 I was wrapping gifts when I ran out of ribbon on a spool.  When I looked at the empty ribbon spool, I thought, "This looks like a thread spool. I've seen those become recycled.  I wonder what I can do with a ribbon spool."

I've seen a craft for a thread spool before.  It was used to create a miniature list of all the good boys and girls, with your child's name on it, then string added to be hung from a christmas tree.  I didn't want to do that, though.  What I had was a ribbon spool, much larger than a thread spool.  So, I went on Pinterest.

And what do you know?  I made a tiny gift basket for a gift card I will be giving away; with the help of Pinterest, of course.

You can sort of see the gift card I tucked into it after I added a quarter piece of tissue paper.  A full size sheet of tissue would be too much.

I poked the sides with a pencil to break a hole so that I could string a ribbon through to make a handle.

I slightly trimmed the rounded part off the bottom of the side of the spool, so that it would not roll.  I also covered the sides so you didn't see the barcode.  The sides are covered with a "Christmas card" which was actually a piece of "junk mail."