Busiest shopping day of the year??

Today is traditionally meant to be the busiest shopping day of the year. The last Saturday before Christmas. I worked it, and I'm not so sure it was. Now I know I haven't worked for almost 3 months, and it was the busiest Saturday I have worked for a long time, but it was busier on Thursday. I think the cost of living has made people evaluate what they are spending, where they are spending it and, most importantly, when they are spending it. I was off work for all the wrong reasons, but it meant I was fortunate enough to have finished all but a couple of small presents before Black Friday weekend was over. Normally though, I am a last minute girl and end up having to budget hard until the end of January as I have overspent in December. 

It does remind me of happy memories though, for many years it was a tradition that Dad and I went into town on Christmas Eve to look at the lights, have a cheeky McDonalds, and spring it on him that I hadn't even started my shopping! As I got older, and started to shop earlier, it made it even nicer. We could slowly wander around town. Visiting busy shops changed into visiting cafes for a hot chocolate and a mince pie. Stressing about there being no wrapping paper left to buy turned into browsing to see what we could buy in the January sales. I know now that the reason it started was so that Mum could prep everything for Christmas Day. Whilst we were out wrapped up in scarves and gloves looking at the Christmas lights, buying reduced Christmas decorations to add the our collection and running around doing all my last minute shopping, Mum was peeling and chopping vegetables, wrapping presents, preparing the Z-Bed for my sister to sleep on and doing all the serious hard work to make our Christmas so special. As I got older I thought the tradition would end but Dad still wanted to go to town. It wasn't until we moved to Chesterfield in 2013 that the tradition stopped. Now I am in town every Christmas Eve, but I am working instead of wandering. Dad made everything about Christmas extra sparkly and glittery, not just because of his obsession with turning the living room into a colourful wonderland every year, but because of how much Christmas made him sparkle. Its not been the same since we lost him and it never will, but now we have to make new traditions. This year we have decorated our house like its 1986, there's tinsel and ceiling streamers everywhere. Its all for Dad. And our cat it would seem! He has become to see tinsel as a comfortable cat bed and will grab every opportunity to nest in it, making putting the decorations up take twice as long as you can't move him when he's asleep!!