Men! Have you xmas shopped on the 24th before?

[Persepone]

About 31 years ago I was very, very broke and my daughter was very young and I had a paycheck coming on the 27th--so decided to take a chance on the "float" (back then there was more slop in the system), so I waited until after the banks closed on 12/24 to do my Christmas shopping, in hopes that I could get my paycheck into the bank before the store got it's check into the system--but I was determined to have something for my daughter's Christmas.

I chose a discount department store for this little one-stop shopping trip (a sort of local precursor to Wal-Mart) and the mobs were horrendous (I guess everyone else had paycheck problems as well that year). Several hours after the doors were closed and locked, the checkout lines still snaked around the store.

But I got my presents--many of which were on sale--and Christmas was good that year--and my check to the store did NOT bounce after all because I somehow managed to keep to the actual balance in the account after all...

It was actually interesting to see who shops Christmas eve--and also there seemed a special camaderie among those shopping that night. There were those with "no clue" and those who, like me, I suspect, had postponed their shopping for financial reasons and I can't say it was entirely a bad experience, but I would not do it again unless I had to.