What’s In My (Christmas) Bag

I love Christmas, and there’s nothing like buying a little something for yourself (well, something you didn’t intend to buy, as opposed to something you did).

Let me start at the beginning…

Back In October, I went shopping for a birthday gift for my sister.  Upon my better judgment, I wandered into a few bag stores—just to look.  I found a bag I liked in the Dooney & Bourke outlet.  But being as I was not shopping for myself (and let’s face it, I totally didn’t need another bag), I was a good girl and put it back.

Fast forward one month.  Now I’m Christmas shopping.

One of my general rules for buying something I don’t need or can’t decide on is to put the item back on the shelf—if I continue to think about it for more than a week, I allow myself to go back and have a second look.  If I like it as much the second time, I allow myself to get it.  This is what I did on that day of Christmas shopping.  I went in to the D&B outlet, scoped out the bag, looked at it, and decided I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would.  Whew.

But, then I turned to the right about 20 degrees.  What have we here?  A lovely red number in a size and style that I love.  I don’t have any red bags.  This would be perfect for the holidays, as well as into January and February when it can be used to lift my spirits on those cold, dark winter days.  Wow, it’s 40% off.  And looky here, I have a 20% coupon…  Done!  But, I think, I probably can’t use the coupon on an item that’s already marked down.  Let me just ask that nice saleslady over there…

Me: Excuse me.  This bag is 40% off, and I have a coupon for 20% off.  Can I use them together?  God, oh God, please say yes.

Saleslady:  Yes.  YES!  But… (oh Lord, what?) …with the coupon it’s final sale.

Me:  Breathing a sigh of relief, Oh that’s alright.  It’s a gift for me.  Don’t tell anyone (insert sly smile here).

SL:  Oh, don’t worry.  I won’t say a thing.  I just rang one up, so I can tell you it comes to $XX.XX (I’m not about to reveal what I spent, other than to say it was under $75, a randomly selected number).

Me:  That sounds great!

However, I was there to shop for others, so I continued to look around.  Not all was lost—I did buy a little something for someone else.  So, I’m not completely Christmas selfish, right?

Do you hear what I hear?  All of my readers begging, Please!  Enough with the chatter.  Just show us the bag. 

Your wish is my command…

This bag is nothing more than a general tote.  But I love it.  It’s big enough to carry all of my work items (which is not much more than I normally carry with me anyway), but small enough that it’s not too big.

The interior is hot pink, which is never something I choose.  But because it’s inside, I figured it was okay.  And the amount of pockets made up for the pinkness.

I don’t use the middle zip pocket—I don’t ever use middle zip pockets in bags that have them.  I don’t know why exactly.  I just allow them to serve the purpose of a divider for all of my items.

There are even a few pen pockets (squee!).

Of course the bag comes complete with the D&B signature duck.

See how well it contains all of my stuff? 

The contents are the same as I last described them, with two exceptions: my planner has changed from the Personal Malden to the Compact Chameleon (though since I took the picture it changed again to the Compact Regency), and I’m now reading Christmas with Tucker by Greg Kincaid.

I also briefly added one item to my bag, but only to transport it to work:

Dark chocolate M&Ms and a new bag are the perfect way to start a holiday season! 

(By the way, those M&Ms are long gone.)