Well there you go.....

Estevan's downtown shopping district had their big "Midnight Madness Christmas Shopping Kickoff" thingy tonight.  For the last few weeks, any time you shopped downtown you got a stamp in your passport.  Then you entered your passport in a draw.  To win, you had to be at the drawing downtown tonight at 8 pm.

Sari and Megs went just for the fun of it..... then wandered over to the draw just for the fun of it......

And Sari won the big prize....... a $500 shopping spree (just for the fun of it).

The only catch was that she had to spend it all in an hour and a half.  She had from the time of the draw until 9:30.

Now, with all the teasing I do about Sari spending all of our money all of the time, you would think that this would be an easy task for her..... but it wasn't!   I was at the hockey game so she called and asked "What should I do?  Should I buy practical stuff or just blow it?"   Of course I said, "It is found money.... just blow it!" and that may have been the problem.  I don't think I have ever told her to go blow $500 on impractical stuff in the 20 years we have been married.  In fact, she thought she had the wrong number.

Fortunately, she had Megan with her!  :)

Even at that though, Megan said that Sari would go into a store, look around and go "I don't know!"   In fact, one of the ladies who organized the thing said, "You don't selfishly shop for yourself very much, do you?"  :)

In the end (and in typical Sari fashion) she came home with bags and bags of stuff.... some practical stuff that we would have bought anyway, some presents for other people (just because she thought she ought to share the love) and a very few, small things for herself.

The best part, though, was the reaction of people when she won.  There were other prizes and when people won those everyone was like "meh"..... but when Sari won the big one everyone started clapping and patting her on the back and saying things like, "You do so many good things for others - you deserve to win this!" 

That may have been the best gift of all (but we are keeping the stuff too!!!)  :)