It turns out that my family is sort of upset this year that I asked them to give my present money to charity. Not by the principal of it, but by the actuality - they are really bothered by the fact that that means I don't have any presents to open. Which has resulted in them buying me a bunch of small "crap" gifts. I keep telling them to stop, that I don't need any of this stuff. Nor do I have room for it (in my suitcase or my apartment). I haven't even done that much shopping myself - most of this trip has been about spending time with family and eating all the things I miss while in France (though I did raid my mom's jewelry store and I bought a new dress for Miss Leyla's upcoming wedding). And I'm currently going through all of the clothes I shipped back to the US in April, and it's like Christmas all over again - finding clothes that I'd completely forgotten I had. Including my winter coat - I froze those past few weeks in Paris, but I didn't want to spend money on a coat when I had a perfectly good one at home.

So 2008 was all about the down-sizing and I'm planning on continuing that into 2009 as well. But will someone please remind me of that when the soldes start in just a few weeks?? Me + sales = bad news. I'm trying to limit myself to just buying a pair of dark grey boots though, to replace the ones I had to throw out - I literally wore the soles off of my old ones while walking around London Thanksgiving weekend!