Tis The Season ...

Christmas is a time for sharing, for festive joyful spirits.. It is for baking cookies, Christmas parties and it's for kind, selfless gestures in the name of Christmas!

 Which brings me to Saturday afternoon. Rob, Alina and I went on a search for a nice, warm toque (Warm winter cap) for Alina. We're going to Thunder Bay to visit Rob's family for Christmas, so we need to buy some warm clothing. We looked all over the mall on Friday with no luck! We went to a consignment store nearby and I discovered a bin full of toques! It wasn't long before I found the perfect toque for my Alina! The cherry on the sundae! Or the strawberry on the shortcake, in our case. We put it on Alina and it was so cute. It was a strawberry cap with a green top and everything. It's Rob, Alina, myself, the store owner and one other shopper in the store. Rob and I took Alina over to the mirror with her new cap on and I tell her that she looks so cute in her brand new toque! We snap a few pictures of the two of us because we just can't resist and we're all pretty excited about it. Rob continues to put different hats on her head and we're giggling at some of his choices. I put her new scarf and strawberry cap on our buggy and join Rob and Alina in the hat fashion show.

 After a few minutes we decide that we're all finished. Rob asks me where I put her cap. I scoff and say, "It's on her stroller with her scarf.. just look!" We can't find it. I'm very vocal about insisting to Rob that I know I put it where I put it. The other shopper is paying at the till and I am frantically looking for this cap. The owner of the store finishes up and asks us what we're looking for. We explain that we put a strawberry toque on our buggy and now we can't find it anywhere. She gasps and says, "That lady just bought a strawberry cap!"

 My jaw practically hits the floor. I couldn't believe it.

 So the lady that quietly shopped around the entire time that Rob, Alina and I were there deliberately snatched the cap off of our stroller. She heard us talking about how cute Alina looked in this hat. She saw us taking pictures of her in it. How bad is it that someone could be that awful to take something from another person's stroller!? It wouldn't be as bad if she just walked into the store and saw that we had something she wanted and snatched it out of being competitive and unfair. But she was there the entire time we were! There's no way that she didn't hear us ranting and raving over this cap. We were so excited that we finally found something we both really liked. She literally experienced the joy it brought the young couple and their baby girl and she still took it. I honestly think that there must be something off with her to do something so ... wrong.

 I realize that it's just a hat. Alina didn't know the difference. It wasn't like we already bought it and then she took it from our Jeep. But the act was nasty. I didn't like how it made me feel. It was mean spirited and it made me feel ... bad. I mean, it's Christmas time!

 So in the end- I know Alina simply wasn't meant to have it. But the lady that literally stole from a baby will have some bad karma coming her way. Nothing big, just something that will cause her to have that bad, ugly feeling in her gut- just like I had.

 Thank goodness there is more good in my life to balance the bad that happens every now and then! So the next time you're at a door and a busy shopper is up close behind you, on their blue tooth yapping away unaware, open the door for that person. Or if a pushy driver is signalling to get into your lane, just let them. After all Tis the Season to be Jolly and Considerate and Kind! Oh and the next time you see something you want, but someone already has it ... DON'T TAKE IT.. bitch.

That's okay- Alina found an elf cap in our Christmas decorations to wear.