MOZY ON OVER

When I received this today,  

I realized that we take speedy delivery quite for granted.  I'm sure my children have no idea how much we had to plan ahead and settle for very few choices when I was a child.

In this year of 2013, the wrapped box below came in 5 days.

This one arrived in 6 days.

This present was delivered in 3 days!

But back in the Old Days, anything you purchased through the postal mail took 6-8 weeks to deliver. We made our choices from the catalog--and oh, we kids pondered and pored over those catalogs!

Sometimes we purchased Christmas gifts from the store.  Our town boasted a hardware store, a dimestore, a furniture store, and a family-owned store that sold clothing, jewelry, and shoes.  If these stores didn't have what we wanted, we might make a special trip out of town and drive thirty minutes--but that was an Important Thing.  Once my dad drove us to Bremen, Indiana, to their furniture store when we were looking for a magazine rack for Mom.  It was such a big deal that I'll always have it in my memories.  We found that rack and it is still in use at their house 60 years later.

My best friend's family was really fancy.  Each year they would drive all the way to South Bend and go to an amazing store called K-MART.
  
My friend (who had three siblings) would do ALL of her Christmas shopping there; she was so happy and proud of having varied and wonderful choices.

This morning I in my pajamas ambled over to the computer and ordered yet another Christmas present online.  Even though Christmas is only three weeks away, I don't worry about a late arrival.

And I may have even ordered it from K-MART.