I didn’t go anywhere near a mall, if you were wondering.

I am not THAT insane.  Thank you very much.

As a matter of fact, we had Shane over for a good part of the afternoon.  We were thinking of going to the movies, but changed our minds as we figured all the bored family members from out of town would be at the theaters.  Heck, that was what I did before.

Anyways, the boys played on the XBox 360 while I got my magazines and recipe folders sorted out. Later that night, we picked up Tamara and we all had dinner, some wine and played a little more games.

Despite the fact that we stayed home all day, I got 90% of my Christmas shopping done.  Oh yes, the old school online bargain hunter is back in her original form! Haha!

Back in my earlier days, November 1 marked the start of Christmas shopping. Well, for those my mom and I didn’t already shop for during my summer trip back to Thailand, that is. Most shopping will be done online or through catalog. By the weekend after Thanksgiving, I would be have the Christmas tree up and the gifts will all be wrapped.

Recent years, we have been giving home made gifts with the thought of it being more personal yet economical. But this year, we returned to the consumerism circuit. The past few years of giving homemade treats haven’t really been a success. I mean, some of the friends I won’t get to see for a while and therefore the goods weren’t fresh, or I had to bake according to when I would see them, also not horribly convenient.

Anyways. This year, I supported traditional consumerism.  And I’m pretty much done. There are still a few “hand made” items that need to be done for Brandon’s family. And I still have to put some more thoughts into what to get for a few more people. Other than that, we’re all set.

And to capitalize on other home shoppers like myself, Brandon handed me a few used games to re-sell on Amazon. Despite all the raves, we didn’t particularly like Halo 3 or Assassin’s Creed. Well, Brandon doesn’t like playing them and I got bored watching him play them.

Mind you, Assassin’s Creed is a marvelously beautiful game and the concept is pretty cool, but boy was it boring to watch. It’s like, go to this tower, now go to that tower, scale it and do all of this cool move and stuff and then go to the next one. You can’t even run if you want to keep your low profile so you saunter through a town. I’m sure there is more to this game but we were so done with it. But I digress.

So I put those games back on Amazon for sale on Thursday night. Not 10 minutes later, both of them were sold.

(And for those who are curious, we went out and bought Mass Effect to replace those two games we just sold. Brandon’s enjoying it so far and so am I.  It’s really awesome how everything is done. Just like what they said on the promo on SciFi channel, it does feel like you’re in a “Choose your adventure” movie instead of a game.  Everything is so detailed.)

The buy of Assassin’s Creed turns out to be from a military address.  If you know us, do you think we’re going to have a military personnel buy his own game this time of year?

That’s right.  I sent the buyer a confirmation email that his item has been shipped and that it is on us.  Merry Christmas is my message that I sent with the full refund.

Oh, and our Marine contact for this year’s Operation Jingle All the Way wrote me back! After a few years of sending stuff to the troops, this is the first time I actually got an email back from anybody.  (Well, except for Air Force Amy.  Then again, she’s a friend and not a random contact.)  Everything works out for him and his company. All the girlie things got distributed to the ladies and the boys surely will enjoy the loot.

We have been emailing back and forth a little bit now.  Guys, I think we have just adopted a Marine.  :)   So, our Biker Marine, if you stop by, thanks for being out in the front line.  We’ll send you some more stuff soon!

As for tonight, it’s full moon in November. What do you think we’ll be doing after dinner? 😀

Actually, I almost forgot about this year’s Loy Kratong if not for my former blogger friend Kitjar who popped in on my IM to say hi.

Wow. How this month has flown by. And Wednesday is the 100th day anniversary of her death.

3 months have come and gone. Holy cow…