It has been a decadent five days of feasting. We polished off the leftovers tonight.
The weekend guests have returned to their respective zip codes.
Table clothes have been laundered and folded and put away.
I figured tonight would be as good a night as ever to catch up and blog.
I figured if I started typing I would stay out of the kitchen and stop eating.
So in order to procrastinate just a little bit longer, I turned to my December issue of O The Oprah Magazine and was sad to find that it was too late for me to enter to win "The 12-day Give O-Way." I had been meaning to enter. I had even marked the necessary icons scattered throughout the magazine. You had to go on line for 12 days and register the icons for a chance to win.
It would have been a chance to do some of my holiday shopping without shopping.
If I had been one of the 12 lucky winners, who actually entered the contest before the 11/25/13 deadline, I would have given almost everything away.
For years Oprah was bigger than Santa Claus in adult circles by giving away her "Favorite Things'' to lucky TV audiences. And a lot of those items wound up on EBay quicker than the UPS trucks delivering them could back out of the recipients' driveways.
Pretty ungrateful and nervy if you ask me. And every year when this gifting and selling would take place it really bothered me.
If I had been more focused and entered this contest I would have given away or auctioned off for charity most of the 60 items on the list.
My sister was definitely getting the UGG boots. My husband would have been the recipient of the PerfecTemp Cordless Electric Kettle. I would let the children wrestle over the Beats headphones and the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch.
I would have kept the lounge gown by UrbanMuuMuu.
I would wear it while writing this blog.
Okay, I just looked into ordering it in orchid, using the OPRAH code to save 20 percent on a ridiculously priced gift to myself. Happy birthday to me. The fact it was made in the USA makes it even more tempting.
Have I mentioned Oprah and I, and one of my dearest friends who lives in New York, share the same birth date?
The rest of the "Favorite Things," after also spoiling a few wonderful friends with gifts, I would auction on EBay for charities.
As always most of the stuff on the O List is soooo-O not on my list of favorite things. My favorite things start with family and friends and then there is chocolate, purses and Molly the yellow lab that lives up the block. But never truffle products, unless they are chocolate truffles.
I wanted to win to avoid shopping. Unlike the 141 million shoppers who got involved in the Gray Thursday/Black Friday crazy, I went to and watched movies. The "Hunger Games" on the family room PC until 1 a.m. and HG No. 2: Catching Fire on IMAX in the theater. Both with my visiting college-aged son. Priceless!
According to figures released by Walmart, 2.8 million towels were sold during the big shopping weekend. And 2 million televisions and 1.9 million dolls were whisked away from the big box retailer.
None of these items were on the Oprah list. A fight over towels at a Walmart in Arkansas also made the news.
According to USA Today, the National Retail Federation reported shoppers spent a lackluster $57 billion going into Cyber Monday shopping. That was down from $59.1 billion last year.
The average shopper dropped between $400-500. If Mrs. Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, is reading this she should skip the next sentence. Oprah is sending her a $500 Thomas Keller Black Truffle Risotto gift box that was on the the "Favorite Things" list. A whole page was devoted to truffle products.
Oprah is not your average shopper.
Neither am I. I have 30 minutes to see if the UrbanMuuMuu lounge gown becomes a Cyber Monday special.
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