It's beginning to "sound" like Christmas

Since no decorations have been put in place, there is no snow on the ground to speak of, and the weather is supposed to be really nice the next few days, so I can't say it's looking like Christmas. The sounds, however, are everywhere. Christmas music is already filling the radio stations, but most of all, it is the toy catalogs that started everything. Last week, the little man and I made a trip to Wal-mart. As we walked in the door, there they were, the stacks of toyland catalogs. I picked one up and let lil' L look at it while I shopped. The entire time in the store, his eyes were glued upon the toy filled pages. That afternoon, we had one in the mail, thus we had a catalog for the two children. I can't tell you how many hours....yes, hours, those catalogs have been studied. I told the children to look and circle the things they like. Didn't take too long before their vocabulary had changed to "Do you want to see what I am going to get?" Never did I promise any of the toys in there. After a few circles here and there, I thought, this will be great, we will have narrowed it down to a few things the kids would like for Christmas. Not so, for the more they looked at it (namely lil' L) the more there was to like. After a few days, we saw a commercial advertising the toy catalog for Target. F said I should stop by and pick one up. My thoughts, "Great, more toys for them to say they really want." F's reply, "Think of the hours they would be busy looking at the catalogs." We have not moved on from the Wal-mart ads, and those have been put aside, and indeed, it has helped to move us in the right direction for Christmas. We have been blessed to have each other, and I am grateful we can provide the kids with not only the bare necessities of life, but a few extra fun things, too. And yes, I will be present at some of the very early black friday sales. My sister and I are already scheming.