Old-fashioned holiday shopping is now so yesterday, isn’t it? For years, you just went out to a shopping center, later called “the mall”, or to your favorite, stand-alone retail store. Shopping might have been done with your credit card sometime in December or perhaps you waited until after you received and cashed your Christmas bonus. Maybe you paged through endless catalogs and did your shopping that way. I can remember the novelty of the super sales and bargains bought at the crack of dawn as the first “Black Friday” made its debut and reshaped traditional Christmas shopping. Then “Cyber Monday” came upon the scene. Well, that was a novelty because what shopping you didn’t complete over Thanksgiving weekend, you’d finish up your first day back at work and consider it done. Now, most people have computers so Cyber Monday still is great for deals but people shop in their PJs in front of their own computer, and not on work hours. This year the retailers say Black Friday crowds somewhat languished while “Gray Thursday” crowds were overwhelming. Guess those shop-til-you-drop power shoppers were not suffering from the effects of too much tryptophan to hit the open stores and get ‘er done. I only went shopping one time on the original Black Friday. My mom sent me for a couple of presents she picked out for me, but she didn’t drive, so I was her proxy to buy my presents: a Mickey Mouse radio at Radio Shack and a gold filigree ring at Service Merchandise. When I arrived at 7:00 a.m. the Radio Shack patrons queued up around the store waiting for people to leave to make room for others to enter. I was getting out of the car when I heard two people complaining about the Mickey Mouse radios being sold out in the 5:00 o’clock hour. I shut the car door and drove over to Service Merchandise. Crowds were milling in the door and on the sidewalk and luckily the jewelry department was not bogged down and I was happy my mission would be accomplished. They had the ring but it was too large for my slender fingers. My next stop was to Fairlane Mall to buy gifts for my mom. It was so crowded that you had to get into the throng of shoppers to actually move through the mall as everyone was kind of just shuffling along. I took one look at the crowd, threw up my hands in despair and was outta there. Well, since I have no gifts to buy, instead I sit here ensconced in the cozy kitchen, a cup of coffee within reach, writing this blog post. Buddy is nearby happily trilling and thrilling me with his beautiful music as he gives Karen Carpenter’s “Home for the Holidays” a run for the money.