Problem With Shopping Early

I've decided this year for Christmas that I'm going to avoid putting presents on my credit cards as much as possible. If I have to shop online, I want to be able to reimburse myself asap. But, my biggest thing for this year is that on every pay day weekend (I get paid every other week) I will go shopping for a present or two to help spread out the spending.

So, a couple of weekends ago I was out shopping with my mom. I wanted to shop for my FIL first since I knew what I wanted to get him and the item was on sale. We stopped into Brookstone and I picked up one of those home weather centers that tells you the outside temperature and some other neat weather details. We have one now, but for some reason it just stopped reporting the outside temperature, so it was time for a new one. I bought it and tucked it away.

The advance model, not the one I bought for my FIL (I couldn't find a photo of the one I got)

Well, the bad thing about shopping for the holidays so early is trying to convince the person not to buy the present you just purchased. Let me set up the scenario I was in a couple of days ago with my FIL.


We went out to Brookstone to return Jeff's heated gloves that he bought a few weeks back for his cold morning motorcycle days, but they just didn't work they way he assumed. So, I was standing at the counter while the clerk processed the return and my FIL is roaming the store. I look over my shoulder to see what he's doing (and to keep my eye on him since he's like a little kid) and where is he standing? Yup, at the weather station table.


The return was taking some time since the clerk had to call customer service and I'm starting to panic in my head since my FIL is studying all the weather unit displays. Oh, I was getting ancy thinking to myself, what do I tell him? Do I tell him that I already bought it? Do I tell him he can't get it? Oh my, oh my, oh my. Finally the return finished and at the same time he walked over to me (hands empty) and I ask him, whatcha lookin' at?


He responded, Oh these weather things. He then proceeded to walk over to show them to me. I kept thinking to myself, oh please don't pick one up to buy. So, he shows all three to me with the pro's and con's of all of them. He seemed to like the middle devise the best (yup, that's the one I bought him) since it was a step up from the basic and not as high tech as the high end one.


Then the interest just vanished. Phew! I walked out telling him, oh those are all pretty neat and thinking to myself, oh this will definitely be a story to tell Christmas day after he opens his present.