Man On A Mission

My husband is a collector. He has collected a few different things over the course of our 11 year marriage (which always seems strange to say to me because we've been together for 13 years and so what? the first 2 don't count? Do I say over the course of our 13 year relationship rather than our 11 year marriage? Never sure on that one.. but I digress) but the last few years his big thing has been blu-ray movies (and yes we collected DVDs before that so we have an s-load of those too).

But every November he stops buying movies. You see, come November he starts gearing up for Boxing Day. Boxing day to Gunther is what Christmas morning is to the girls. It's a day filled with endless possibilities where you just know magical wonderful things are going to happen and you'll spend the evening making piles of your new stuff and lovingly and excitedly cataloguing your loot. Boxing Day (or week) is what Gunther looks forward to all year long.

You can't really blame him. Not only does he have to follow me down to Ottawa every Christmas and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family which celebrates Christmas Eve by stuffing our faces and then ripping through gifts like a band of rabid howler monkeys, but then he spends Christmas Day driving the 4-5 hours home again only to be greeted with a supper that's usually frozen pizza or some other ready made meal I picked up at Costco the week before.

But Boxing Day.. oh there's magic on Boxing Day. The night before he checks online for all the deals and makes lists by store of what he wants to hit and how much they should cost (because if he can't find it in one store you bet he'll get the other one to price match it.. oh yes he will!). And then armed with our cell phones we will send the kids off to the toy section of Best Buy, Future Shop and Walmart while G and I, each toting a basket or cart, meticulously set out to collect the Blu-Rays on the list. We are machines and nothing distracts us from our mission -- to gather the movies we want/need/might possibly be interested in/don't already own/or just seems like a deal too good to pass up -- and to get them for the lowest price possible.

This year we hit two Best Buys, three Wal-Marts and 2 Future Shops before I finally had to say ENOUGH and call it quits. We've likely purchased about 200 movies without ever paying more than $15.00 for any one and usually paying much less. Yes, that's still a lot of money. Yes, we probably don't need that many movies and yes, we're obvious examples of consumerism gone amuck -- but the only thing G gets under the tree every year is a Toblerone bar and gift cards (to Best Buy obviously) and it's the one thing (other than electronics to build a home server to store all the movies) that he spends his money on so who am I say to say no to him especially when he's the only bread winner in the family. Also, to be perfectly honest, it's the only money we spend on entertainment since we don't go out and rarely eat out anymore.

So yeah, I'll be watching some movies over the next few months. We don't have cable - we get free-to-air TV with an antenna so I should have plenty of time. All I can say is I'm glad that's over for another year... and super glad that Costco sells clubpack of popcorn!