a steady diet of faith & fancy with some mischief thrown in here and there

Thanks to margoeve for a timely post regarding the holidays, shopping and gift cards!

There's an article out regarding which of the nations retailers are down-sizing or closing completely, some of whom *will not* honor purchased gift cards (The Sharper Image to name one).

Here's the updated list by Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/storeclosings.asp

Here's a list of some of the stores you might want to be wary of:

Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 stores mo re to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( N ew Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard's to close some stores

It was a good Christmas all in all. ( Details for the curious and interested )

Last night I was a very lucky girl and had a double date -- with da' wife ani_moore and wilfulcait and extra added bonus time with autox323is. Yanked all the tribal dance stuff out of the closet and sewing room. Plotting, planning and dance classes are in the offing for the new year and projects will be worked on over the weekend.

Looking forward to the weekend and the ringing in the new year with family, loves and friends.

This week has been packed with various errands and jobs all related to the current holiday season. So far I've managed to bake and mail cookies to my canadian cohorts and mail a box of gifts out to my side of the family in CA. The girls are busy wrapping more presents right now and watching Harry Potter 2 (Chamber of Secrets) and I've got a load of laundry in the washer and I'm about to work more on my Christmas cards (got all the way up to "K" last time. Tonight off to a leetle holiday get together and tomorrow night probably doing BR night at the club. Sunday is a scheduled day of decadence at the spa with the lovely ani_moore. Hopefully will get the last of my shopping done too.

How are you all?

It used to be at Amazon.com that when you searched for someone's wishlist, you had an option of adding them as a 'friend' so that finding the wishlist would be easier next time. Apparently that is no longer the case, and indeed I can't find the people I listed that I used to view ... including my husband's *argh*