Christmas Shopping

I am STILL Christmas Shopping. Five days before Christmas.

It had been a very busy fall semester so I had a very late start on Christmas shopping this year. Christmas shopping also meant I went back to the mall. It had been many months since I was at the mall last. After reading David Platt's Radical over Spring Break, one of the challenges I undertook was to not buy clothes (except for necessities) for a year. I liked to buy clothes on sale, so I wanted to stop doing that for a while in order to take the focus off of myself and be more sensitive to the needs around me.

As I walked around the mall looking for Christmas gifts, I saw a lot of great clothes along the way. The Christmas sale also meant very good prices for many clothing items. It would have been so easy for me to buy a dress here and a shirt there, and it was really quite tempting.

But I was not about to undo nine months of work to break the challenge, and I was not about to create an irony in which I would buy what I liked just because there was a great sale while I engaged in the spirit of giving to others as I shopped for loved ones.

In the end, I got some gifts without buying any clothes for myself. For that I am thankful! I still have at least one more Christmas shopping trip and I need to remember this lesson!