Holiday Fuzzies

I love the holidays. I love the twinkle lights. I love the tree. I love the smells, the abandon of the diets, the stories, the anticipation, and even sometimes the shopping......sometimes.
Last night my husband was patting us collectively on the back because we will not have to venture into a store for the next 10 days due to the fact that all Christmas shopping is done,
wait,
what was that?
Done?
Seriously?
And so starts my story today. I ventured out with my five children to grab a few things from Hobby Lobby. I knew I could have waited until tonight but the kids have a Christmas project they are working on that requires embroidery thread and on a foolish whimsy I told them they could pick out the colors they will use. Each girl got to pick three colors. Four girls are doing it. That is a lot of deciding. Once inside I quickly 'helped' my two year old, Abbey, pick her colors and then started letting her hold the chosen others my three older girls were picking out. If you have never been to that particular aisle in Hobby Lobby you would never know that there are probably over a hundred colors and shades of thread. They are also divided so that the common ones are on one side and the special sparkling ones are on the other. We were almost done and facing the sparkling ones that each girl could pick one of when I heard crying. Turning around I saw that an employee had taken the threads from my two year old and was putting them back.
She smiled at me and asked me not to let my little one play with the threads. I grabbed the yellow she was holding, gave it back to my crying daughter, and informed her that we had planned on purchasing them. Sigh.
Over on the other side of the store we spent another hour picking out a few small items for the '12 days of Christmas ding dong ditch' we are currently doing to our neighbors. Most of this was me explaining that I did not want to spend twenty dollars on four santa statues for the fourth night. It also involved a man asking me if I was missing a little girl.
"No, got all mine."
"Oh, I was just wondering because there is a little girl who has been hiding behind those holiday boxes for awhile."
I casually smiled and tried to nonchalantly stroll over to the boxes. Guess Abbey wasn't in the cart like I had thought.
By the time we had left Taco Bell sounded like a good idea. I figured we could go through the drive through and then I could nurse in the car. Only problem, the line was REALLY long. So, carting five children across a parking lot I was ready to order and then cart them back to the car. We could eat at home. As I walked in however a manager saw me and came out from behind the counter. He scooted two tables together and came out to clean them. He then got water cups for all the girls and helped them get what they wanted while I ordered. He made sure to ask if they could have the caffiene drinks or if I would prefer lemonade for them. No charge. After ordering he took my reciept and told me he would bring the food out. Shortly after he came over and said he had noticed that I had ordered bean burritos and was wondering if I wanted the onions out of them for the kids. He brought napkins, he refilled drinks, he asked the kids if they were excited for Christmas. I sat in the chair and nursed the baby into quiet slumber while he basically watched my kids for half an hour. As we were leaving I walked over to thank him. His response?
"Tis the Season, Merry Christmas."