Scotty was here last night and he was in awe of how many presents were under the tree. He was sitting on the floor in front of it, and he said &quot;I wish I knew what was in all those packages&quot;. Then he said &quot;I would be happy knowing what is in just one of them&quot;. Then he got up and came and sat in my lap and put his arms around my neck (yeah, he learned how to work Grandma at an early age) and said &quot;Grandma, if you tell me what is in just one of them, I won&#39;t tell anyone&quot;. I said okay, I will tell you what is in one of them and he got all excited until I said that there was socks in one of them. He got up off my lap and said &quot;I don&#39;t want to talk about any stupid socks&quot;. As we open them on Christmas Eve, he only has 6 more days to wait - to a kid, I am sure that seems like forever.  <br /><br />I know the meaning of &quot;shop till you drop&quot;. I went to Boulder to meet friends for lunch today. They are all girls who work at the mergers and acquisitions firm I used to work for. One of them had taken the rest f the afternoon off, so she and I went to Kohl&#39;s and Penneys. I was done with my shopping, except for my son&#39;s girlfriends gift card from Target, but somehow I ended up buying a bunch more. I had a coupon for 30% off my entire purchase, and even using that I spent almost &#036;300 on my grandson and my son&#39;s girlfriend&#39;s 2 yr. old daughter. Well, &#036;10 of that was new house slippers for me. After we parted ways, I went to Bed, Bath &amp; Beyond and got some stocking stuffers. Greg smokes cigars and I found a leather Cigar pouch that comes with a cigar cutter - never knew there was such a thing - but anyway, I got that for Greg&#39;s stocking. Then I went to Target to get Darcey&#39;s (son&#39;s girlfriend) gift card and spent &#036;300 there also. Other than her card, I got each of the boy&#39;s a DVD of The Simpson&#39;s movie, most of the other stuff was groceries or personal care products so guess that can&#39;t be counted against me as spending too much for the holidays. I have not kept any records but I think I have probably spent in the area of around &#036;3000 on Christmas presents, so I am officially calling an end to it&#33;&#33;&#33; No more impulse buying. Everyday, the pile under the tree gets bigger and everyday Greg comes home, looks at it, and says &quot;I see you went shopping again&quot;. He hasn&#39;t put the kabosh on me yet, but I figure it is coming, so I will quit before he has to&#33;&#33;&#33; I have used my debit card for all of it (he is real stickler about always paying cash and never being in debt), so there isn&#39;t a snowball&#39;s chance that he isn&#39;t going to know the total. My BIL (hubby&#39;s brother - lives in Tulsa) is in town on business (you might remember the story about him losing his underwear on a cruise ship and actually going to the purser to see if anyone had turned in a pair of dirty skivvies), so we are having him over for dinner on Thursday. Wish me well - I am not a big fan&#33;&#33;&#33; <br /><br /> I am planning on making Carnival&#39;s Warm Melting Chocolate Cake for dessert on Christmas Eve, I hope it turns out...<br />