Christmas irritations

The Costco parking lot is packed, after 30 round and rounds, you get lucky, someone gets in their car. and decides after seeing you waiting for their spot, to read War and Peace.
Same Costco, packed, and every parent who has 6 or more kids under 10 yrs old, has them in attendence, oblivious to their havoc.
Got any small Christmas beefs?

I live in Manhattan, no such thing as parking lots!
What we have is crazy crowded street. And, at Christmas, tons of tourist (US & International) adding to the shopping crowd. 
I admit it is beautiful. I even saw a tour bus last nite, "Christmas Lights of NY" Tour.
But forget about being a local, trying to walk to the local stores for regular purchases. I have taken to shop for groceries at 10:30 p.m.
Ho Ho Ho!

chewingthefat


The Costco parking lot is packed, after 30 round and rounds, you get lucky, someone gets in their car. and decides after seeing you waiting for their spot, to read War and Peace.
Same Costco, packed, and every parent who has 6 or more kids under 10 yrs old, has them in attendence, oblivious to their havoc.
Got any small Christmas beefs?

Well this is more of an every visit irritation. The person whose car blocks an entire aisle waiting for someone to leave so they can park. Similar to yours are parents who turn a blind eye to their children running around or running around playing with the store's toys that were for sale. Oh and folks whose disability that enables a close parking spot, appear to be suffering only from morbid obesity.

Costco again, the people who have to inspect every one of the 200 or so roasted chickens, even though they are about 1/10,000,000 % different from one another, it's stupid, and irritating, yet I find it a bit fascinating watching them, I want to ask them, what exactly are they looking for.
Also the people who seem to have a 6th sense about where leaving their stuffed cart and walking away, will cause the most congestion.

O people!, The worst! Bah humbug :)
 
(what's worse than people? Crowds of people!)

Carols, and hymns, and noels - what the hell, you'd think this was some kind of religious holiday...
 
Cheers, john 

Pretty much the whole thing these days...

It use to be obligatory gift buying but I solved that by giving every person yenom,  That is money spelled  backwards.  Now it no longer a issue.  Buying gifts for persons that is personal is extremely difficult as you never know what they want.  I have found that money works.  Now that is all that I do.
 
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

I  will not get irritated by  anything  during the  Christmas season.  Something wonderful  always  happens!   Here is an example.   My  10  year old  grandson  tells my  8  yearr old  granddaughter that there is no such  person  as a  Santa Claus.  I was horrified and  felt  really bad
 
Today, my son picked up the mail and there was a  letter to Santa   that she  put in the mailbox  when she got  off the bus.  In the  letter,  she  said   "I know that you are real if you  bring me  a  giant soccer ball made out of  that  heavy plastic  stuff that I can  crawl in  and someone can roll me  around in it I  have told no one but my  greymo  about this  so if you  bring it    you  are  real."
 
My   son asks  "Do you  have any idea what she is  talking about?"  My  response was  "Of  course!  There is one  waiting in my bedroom for you to  pump up."

If I'm partaking in any of the above and feel a "Christmas irritation" coming on, I try to calm myself by contrasting "irritations" Jesus went through and that it's His birthday that we're supposed to be celebrating. Doesn't always work though.

Greymo

I  will not get irritated by  anything  during the  Christmas season.  

 
Not even me?

MilwFoodlovers
Oh and folks whose disability that enables a close parking spot, appear to be suffering only from morbid obesity.

A friend of mine was a bit overweight, but he looked and acted very hale and hearty. However, he had a severe heart condition (which ended up killing him in his late 40's) and had a handicapped placard. You can never tell what someone's handicap is by looking at him or her. Another example was my wife and I took in several brain injured foster children (one at a time, as a temporary measure until their parents were able to care for them). If they were in a wheelchair, we were given a handicapped placard as well, although we never used it unless we were actually transporting the child (I'm sensitive about that sort of thing. When my in-laws were visiting, I felt guilty when they insisted on my using their placard when driving them around; I preferred dropping them off at the door with my wife, and parking the car like everybody else (at my Costco, there's a "secret" parking area; it's about medium distance from the door, but there is never any competition to get in.
 
Bart

Joe,   How could I possibly  be  irritated by  you  when you  have extended such a  great  invitation for my  family  to meet  up with your  family  in  OLd  Forge  for  pizza  one night?

I sell and service fireplaces.
 
Customers who call the week of Christmas thinking that we can come out and fix their fireplace as if I had no other customers.

Every year, I forget that while Christmas is now over at my house, the rest of the world hasn't had it yet.  Invariably, I end up at a store or the mall thinking it's safe, only to be proven radically wrong.  Which is exactly what happened this afternoon.
 
I am not sure, however, if this is a Christmas irritation or an "I'm an idiot" irritation. 

We left out full shopping cart unattended for about 10 minutes the other day at Target. We couldn't find it! Really, it was gone. For some reason i panicked so we got a store worker who radioed the customer service desk. They had it. We learned our lesson! Also about Christmas shopping- parking sucks, and way too many baby strollers in the stores!

 
RE the Costco issues. Mom's bring the kids to get them the free lunch that is available at the 'sample tables' all around the food section. Avoid going at mealtime !!   Parking is better at Costco than at several of our other big-box mall stores...Best Buy comes to mind. Their parking spaces are all sized for the Toyota Mini-cars and have curbing wandering all over the place. It may look nice when empty, but my F-150 takes two or more of those spaces  when we go there and I have run over more of those damned curbs than I care to list.
 
My solution to the Costco issues is go on a weekday, be there when the place opens. In SoCal they let the business card folks in 30 minutes before the soccer moms. Here in Louisville there are no special hours, so you get there early you get the advantage. Obviously  the parking is the same thing. At least Costco made parking spaces sized for US cars.
 
Now my addition to the irritation list.  In todays world of multiple-marriages, adoption connections, in-laws and outlaws, planning the old fashioned get-together  seems almost impossible to schedule.  We have 10 adult 'kids' Each as their own family unit. 3 of the 10 are out of the area and will not be "home" for the holidays. Of the 7 remaining 'local or visiting from afar' families, all have obligations to visit my-ex (there Mom), Their spouses Mother and Father..some not togerther , some are.  Two of the Grandkids are now legal adults (if not in practice !!) so they are making decisions about this sort of thing seperate from their family units.
Coordinating a Christmas vist around this sort of chaos causes some irritation at times.
  Our solution is to block out two weeks surrounding the Holidays and offer those days to the kids...pick a day when your individual family can visit "Dad and the wicked Step-Mother" !!  It seems to work ok. We can handle one or two of the groups at a time, and they can plan to fit us in around the timing of their other obligations...some parents demand Xmas Eve or Xmas Day contact...We don't.
So that my gripe. I dream of a simple Christmas like the "lets go to Grandma's" that I remember as a kid...but it will never happen in our family.
AL

I simply cannot get Christmas songs out of my head-especially "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg.."

Hearing The 12 days of Christmas by the Muppets
The Chipmunks songs
Grand Ma got run over by a Reindeer
These songs[songs?] and a few others should be banned or played over and over to a terrorist suspect till they blab.

I had to go to Toys Are Us last week. That is the last time I will do that! The noise level (activated noise making toys, screaming tots, cell phone shouters) was more than my poor nerves could stand. 

Knowing Sundancer doesn't have my address when he is sending
out those Christmas Gift Checks.  Maybe next year.

Al...I SO get the scheduling thing!  I get lucky because I'm still single, but my sisters (and now my oldest niece) have a heck of a time.  We've blocked out the Sunday before for Mom's and the Sunday after for Dad's, which means I only deal with those two and makes actual Christmas pretty much a regular day for me.  I can't imagine what the rest of my family goes through trying to figure out when to go where, though.  Especially my oldest niece...she's got our two, plus her parents' two, plus her husband's parents, plus theirs at home with the kids.

I used to be one of those "Must be here Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day" Parents but no more. As our kids and their families have gotten older, we've spread out the holidays and it's much less hectic and stressful. We had a relaxing "Christmas Eve" with our son's family this past Saturday and everyone had an enjoyable time without fretting over having to get up the next AM and do Christmas.

I was a little irritated today when I came out of a nearby restaurant after lunch and someone had keyed my van door, and a merry Christmas to them too....maybe they didn't like my peanut soup!

joerogo

Greymo

I  will not get irritated by  anything  during the  Christmas season.  

Not even me?

or me?     it must be Christmas!

annpeeples


I simply cannot get Christmas songs out of my head-especially "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg.."

Ann - everyone should have to listen to Christmas At The Trailer Park to get them in to the holiday spirit. 

LOL!

Wow, I misread the title of this thread as Christmas Invitations! I have to read more carefully. Every time the Orion Cooker thread comes up I initially think it says Onion Cooker. Happy Holiday everyone!

Agnes---it does say onion cooker---I can see it right now.  I don't need an onion cooker so I ignore it.  Nothing wrong with my pots and pans you know.  .
 
We don't need no stinking onion cookers.
 
 

Greymo


I  will not get irritated by  anything  during the  Christmas season. 

 
 
I'm with you 100%
 
People who get angry at traffic, clogged parking lots and aisles, long lines, etc etc. make me laugh. Guess what - if you're there, you're part of the clogging. so relax and enjoy the music, slow down, and look for the fun and good stuff that happens. Greymo is spot on here, and I feel the same way. Nothing irritates me during this season. Even last night, when the Target worker was slower than molassas. Oh well, I got what I needed, and the worker has probably been doing 12 hour shifts all month. And in the end, he was very helpful, even if he was slow. I got a fantastic surprise for the family...and no one knows it's coming. The fun in getting it and knowing that in couple days we'll praise God, then wake up on Christmas morning and have an incredible day together - far outweighs any momentary irritation. So, it just won't get to me this month. Plus, as Greymo points out, there's a lot of hidden wonderments that happen, that spending time getting angry would only make me miss them.