Cold Nose and All

It's entirely possible Target is going to be my new best friend this year. I say this cautiously because I've only visited their web site at this point and reality can hit home hard once you're in the store. My annual pilgrimage began locally with at local grocery but their offerings were limited. Next, it was on to Wal-Mart since I was in Portland and they were on the way. A guy's got to cover all his bases.

Living near a smaller city is great, but every Christmas season, I run into the same dilemma: where to locate a bountiful supply and assortment of holiday candy. Some years it really does seem like a pilgrimage and I feel like one of the Three Wise Men who's misplaced his cosmic GPS. And it's not because I'm picky; I don't have to have the high quality, high priced varieties from a specialty shop. Dove white chocolates with peppermint bits will do just fine -- for a start.

I'm still enough of a kid for the Christmas holidays to spell m-a-g-i-c from start to finish. If I had my way, they'd start sooner and end later. Eleven months is a long time for my inner child to wait, especially in anticipation of chocolate anythings shaped like reindeer, snowmen, and snowflakes. Throw a Dross milk chocolate orange in my stocking and I'm in seventh heaven.

The fact that I'm on post-boards vacation is going to help, I think. Previous years when classes took every available second right up to the last minute made things far more difficult. If worse comes to worse, and Target's web site is more amply laden than their shelves, I suppose an emergency trip to Boston isn't entirely out of the question, and it might be fun. I say that now.

You're right, of course, there's always online ordering, but half the fun of finding holiday goodies entails doing it in person. It's kind of like the difference between watching a Christmas parade on television and standing on the sidewalk with a fast freezing nose and a cup of steaming hot chocolate, while your eyes fill at the sight of children smiling and waving when Santa passes by. You can do the former but the latter is best, cold nose and all.


(Creative Commons image by j4Shirley via Flickr)