Normally, Friday is my day off.  When I say day off, I mean that I’ve worked my 38 hour week and it’s my weekend!  But not today.

With so much to do to prepare our New Year’s Eve celebrations and Australia Day event in January, I needed more time at my desk, especially with chunks of the day being spent on Christmas parties and end of year staff meetings (bah humbug).

So, a quick phone call to my child care centre yesterday saw me enroll the girls in for today so I could get some stuff done.

But, it came at a cost.  Because I couldn’t finish my Christmas shopping today, I knew I would have to brave the crowds at late night shopping at the shopping centre.  With tired girls, who’d been at childcare all day. Oh dear.

I was pleasantly surprised (and grateful!) to find that it was quiet! Quieter than a regular weekend crowd which was awesome.  Even Santa didn’t have a line up!  Santa was not even on my radar so I quickly ducked into target to buy the girls a new shirt so they didn’t have their grubby, paint/food spattered ones for the pic and we lined up.  Miss B wasn’t sure – she was happy to talk to Santa but didn’t want to go near him.  Miss A was as happy as a pig in mud.  In the end, I had to sit on the arm of the chair with Miss B on my lap and the shot was taken.

We finished what we had to do and headed to the food court for some noodles before going home.

Only a few smaller things to do now and I’m pretty much sorted!

Have you braved the crowds this Christmas?  Is all your Christmas shopping done yet?