Wal-Mart shoppers in 2005

As I was driving to work this morning, I heard a radio report that made me shudder. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that most Wal-Mart stores will stay open Thanksgiving night to ease the crowding that led to a worker’s trampling death a year ago.

Millions of Americans make shopping their day after Thanksgiving ritual. They line up in the wee hours of the morning — or, often, in the late hours of Thursday night — outside malls and big box stores to grab discounted Playstations or TVs or whatever this year’s must-have toy might be.

A few years…

It’s a rainy Friday, the day before Halloween and who’s got the stomach for a topic on some weighty issue like health care or the Afghanistan war? Not me.

So weigh in on the time-honored tradition of Halloween, where kids of all ages and costumes will ring your doorbell in search of treats. Is there a tradition behind what you  hand out? Or is it just whatever bags you grabbed as you pushed your shopping cart down the aisles of the local store? At our house, we buy in bulk because we get hundreds of trick-or-treaters.

Do you ask the kids to do…

So here we are on the 3rd Monday of February ‘celebrating’ another Presidents’ Day. Right.

 The current president, Barack Obama, came to Illinois last week for the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s actual birthday. He and George Washington share the honors today, with both of them having February birthdays. And of course, our own newspaper and all the TV stations have run plenty of ads for all those great Presidents’ Day sales. What better way to  honor the leaders of our country than by springing for a new set of sheets, or a nice spring jacket?

I’m as guilty as anyone. To…

It’s Christmas Day, the fifth day of Hanukkah, and the day before Kwanzaa.  You probably received your gifts already, or soon will.

There’s talk on various television news shows, talk shows and other media that because of the economy, many will be regifting their loot this year. Accordign to Wikipedia Regifting is the act of taking a gift that has been received and giving it to somebody else, sometimes in the guise of a new gift.

There is even a website regiftable.com to help give you ideas or share your regifting stories.

Will you regift anything that you’ve received this week, and why?  Or have you…