Christmas Shopping (RIP Circle Bar)

This should technically fall under the header 'Things I Miss Most - Part II', but since Christmas is a special time of year, I thought it should have it's own title.  Christmas shopping each year is often times a reflection of my life - sometimes it is chaotic and last minute, sometimes it is well thought out and organized.  There have been years that I have been so broke that I have skipped gifts all together and other years when I felt the need to prove my self worth by buying extravagant gifts for everyone on my mailing list.  Some years are crafty, some are more store bought.  My favorite years Christmas shopping (EVER) where the years I spent it shopping with my best friend Sig.  For about 4 years in a row, Sig and I created some of my best Christmas shopping memories.  Try as I might to re-create them, I cannot.  Let me tell you the story.

It started one Christmas when Sig and I were roommates.  Actually he owned a house and I had just broken up with my boyfriend (who kept our house to himself).  Sig offered me shelter and I took it.  That first Christmas Sig told me that I was invited to both his huge family get together (on the 23rd), but also to his close family get together (on the 24th).  I was told that the party on the 23rd involved a gift raffle of sorts and that everyone needed to bring 1 gift.  I was also told that I was not expected to bring gifts for his whole family on the 24th (which I knew I had to ignore).

December started slipping by and I started panicking about getting gifts.  Time was running out and the news was filled with terrible tales of shopping malls filled to capacity, 2 hour long lines, freeways coming to a standstill......If you know me then you may be aware that I have the patience of a gnat.  The thought of the lines, the waiting, the searching, the waiting, the fighting just left me cold.

The 22nd arrived and I was plotting my own death all to avoid having to go into town.  Luckily Sig had procrastinated as well.  See he had a new girlfriend at the time and was looking for something special for her.  Sig hatched a plan that involved braving the drive to fashion valley mall, getting valet parking so we wouldn't have to look for a space, and having lists that we could tackle together.  Oh - did I mention that tequila was involved?  We decided that we would stop at the Circle Bar on the top of the mall every time we got a certain amount of gifts checked off our lists.  We were NOT allowed to take a break until we had each done so.  Let me tell you how that worked out.  After the first shot of tequila started to kick in we were quite enthralled by the possibility of another.  This lead to some fast and hard shopping decisions and some cunning purchases.  After about the 3rd shot of tequila, we just didn't care so much about what we got for people.  We were having such a good time that even those 'hard to shop for' friends and family members had gifts within minutes!  This is how Sig's mom ended up with a hand blown monkey head christmas tree ornament (actually make that 2).

Each year after that we kept up our tradition of meeting at the last possible moment, going to fashion valley, eating appetizers and drinking tequila and getting some GREAT gifts.  After a few years my friends who knew about this tradition actually asked to be put at the end of the list so that they would get something funny.

I have had many lovely  Christmas shopping experiences since, but they somehow don't quite live up to the memory of Sig and the Circle Bar (RIP).