Anytime you start a sentence with, “When I was younger,” you know you’re old.
My moment came the other day when I was talking to my best friend about Christmas Shopping. She told me she had done all her shopping online this year. I get it, she owns her own business and for the first time in a couple years she is starting to get really busy, so work comes first.
But I worry that one day stores will become a thing of the past. An article I read the day after our discussion said that online sales were up 16.4 percent or over 32 billion dollars.
Where will the millions of retail employees go if online shopping becomes the norm? Will we become a society that sits in our homes ordering movies, having food delivered, paying bills and shopping online over the computer? Wait! That’s pretty much how my kids already do it.
But… and here it comes… when I was young we made a day of Christmas shopping. We would go downtown to the Lazarus store and spend the whole day looking for a particular gift for each person on our list. We would have lunch at their restaurant counter and top the meal off with the delicious Lazarus fresh baked chocolate chip cookie. Walking around downtown Columbus, the snow swirling around as we headed to the car, our arms overloaded with the beautiful Christmas bags, is a memory deeply etched in my mind. To this day, even if I’m not shopping for the kids,(some years I give cash when the wants are bigger than my pocketbook)(Whoa… pocketbook, I am old) I’ll pop into the mall to purchase small gifts for stockings and gifts for friends. It's a way to get my holiday fix. The decorations, the music, seeing the people walk by with bags hanging from each arm, content in the knowledge that they found just the right gift.
Not a gift that will have to be mailed back and forth if the size is off. Not one that you have to count on the USPS to deliver on time. Not one that if it is missing a part you have to call and then wait the 7 to 10 business days to receive.
Seriously though, I get it. The convenience and the simplicity of it all. Online shopping is obviously on the rise. I just hope that someday in the near future we are not all forced to shop this way, it just takes away some of the magic of Christmas.
| LAZARUS COOKIES | |
| 1 c. butter Mix butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat flour and oats until powder in a blender. Add to above mixture a little at a time. Add salt, baking powder and baking soda. Make sure all ingredients are mixed. Then add chocolate chips, Hershey bar and pecans. Drop golf ball size spoonfuls 2" apart on greased cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake 7 to 8 minutes. Remove cookie sheet and cool. Cookies will appear to be undone. | |
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