Merry Christmas to all, and to all - please recycle

I was wondering if everyone else's garage looks like mine: piled high with cardboard boxes from mail order Christmas shopping. I don't want to get rid of them just yet in case anything has to be returned, so they are all stacked on my lawn mower, about six feet high. After we are sure that everything is staying, I will attack the cardboard mountain with a box cutter and bag them for the curbside recycling pickup in January.

I shop online. I was always a big catalog shopper; a trip to the mall never enticed me. Add my husband to that, who would rather be flogged than go into a store during the holiday season, and faster than you can say "Internet!" we let our fingers do the walking (and mousing). We are both big on the online shopping, and have never had a bad experience. We've bought everything from clothes to tires to electronics. And fabric, don't forget the fabric. If you are careful who you deal with, it's no more risky than going shopping in person and as handy as buying locally. Well, better actually, 'cause they won't let me in Dillard's in my pajamas.

Just be sure to recycle the boxes. And, in my case, the Christmas wrapping paper too (which irritates the living daylights out of my husband when I'm scurrying around snatching up the gift wrap as soon as it is removed from the package).