December 23 and 24: shop around the clock

In the mid- to late 1980s I remember a retro department store commercial that aired around Christmas using the song by Bill Haley & The Comets, Rock Around The Clock (which, coincidentally, came out in 1955, the year my Mom was born) to advertise last-minute shopping hours. I suspect that's what my Mom was up to on December 23 and 24 in 1988, when she returned to "the Exchange" and spent $22 on "Radio, T.V.", and another $19.95 at the Stars & Stripes bookstore on Christmas eve.

I, too, did some last-minute shopping (although I have to confess I kind of hate shopping and while I love the idea of supporting local businesses, try to do most of it online). On Friday, I took my daughter to Walgreen's so she could pick out a gift for her brother (and picked up a few other things as well). On Saturday, we braved the Grand Lake area of Oakland (nice weather, day before Christmas, Saturday farmer's market!) to buy a book for my mother-in-law at Walden Pond books. Unfortunately, I don't have proof of that purchase as I've since misplaced the receipt. But spend roughly twenty bucks at a bookstore on Christmas eve, like my Mom 28 years before, I did.

I don't have any dated ephemera between Christmas eve and December 28th, the day she died, but I have at least one more post in this series that I'll get to soon to wrap up this writing experiment.