Not everyone bustling through the Vancouver Mall on Christmas Eve day put off their gift shopping to the last minute.
Savannah Gentry was so on the ball, in fact, she was at the mall J.C. Penney location to make some returns and exchanges.
“My family always does Christmas the week before because my family is really big,” she said. “My grandma has nine kids. Christmas is for the in-laws, pretty much.
She’ll be spending Christmas Day with some other family, she said.
She moved to Eugene, Ore., from Camas recently, and was at the mall to spend some time with a friend from the area.
“Just trying to spend time without kids,” she said. “So far so good. No phone calls.”
Suzanne and Randy Stark were browsing the jewelry section at the mall J.C. Penney store after checking out some clothes.
“Everybody else is done, he just hasn’t got a clue what we’re going to do for me,” Suzanne said.
They take a collaborative approach to gifts. Suzanne said they had hoped to get a remote starter for her car, but when they finally saw some pricing a few days ago, they had to alter the plan.
“That’s just dumb. Even if it is the best Mazda around,” she said. “So we have to come up with something else.”
Twelve-year-old Andrea Belisle said she already found something for her brother and sister, but wanted to find something nice for Mom and Dad.
“I meant to get her something like a week ago, but I never found something that I liked. Then I saw a commercial for something here,” Andrea said, before her mother, Roberta, came back to the jewelry section with a possible sweater for Dad.
“We actually have everything, this is just last minute stuff,” Roberta said. “It was more like, I didn’t want to clean the house, and I left my husband at home to do it, so we could go shopping and have lunch.”
They’ll have more than 12 people to host for Christmas, she said. They’re pretty good at it after years of Christmases, she said, but it was nice to get a little mother-daughter bonding time away, thanks to the husband.
“He’s watching football, having a beer probably, putting shoes away, putting jackets away, all that kind of stuff. We’re good,” she said.
