Monday, December 01, 2008

The Holiday Season

Welcome to the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, better known as the 'holiday season'. If you are anything like me, you know exactly how many Christmas presents you have purchased so far; zero. I am not one of those highly organized people who keeps a mental list of Christmas presents and makes purchases throughout the year when they find them on sale. I hate these people. Actually hate is a strong word, let's just say I don't share their enthusiasm for methodical planning and preparedness.

Being a male, I turn to my tried and true approach to gift purchasing, procrastinate, then panic. In the first few years of our marriage I waited until Christmas Eve to start shopping, with mixed results. Not that my wife didn't need an emergency roadside kit mind you, but road flares do lack a certain element of romance. I have since learned from my mistakes and I now allow at least a three day shopping window. I actually bought my wife a cashmere sweater and scarf last year. I think it was even the right size, the scarf that is.

It's not that I hate shopping, it's just I hate the crowds, and the lines, and the grumpy people, and the parking lot nightmares. If I could go shopping at 5:30AM on a Tuesday, I think I could handle it. I wonder if I could talk the people in charge of the malls to designate a Man's Shopping Day? That would be great. Sure there would be a few fist fights and a long line at the food court, but men shop with reckless efficiency. If it looks good to you, and it's within one dress size either way, buy it. I would be done in two hours, tops.

This year, I have done a good bit of my shopping online and I plan to do more . Ordering my Christmas gifts in my slippers is my kind of shopping. I wonder if they sell road flares online?

1 comment:

Joe D said...

My husband, believing whole heartedly that a beverage or two before hand is the only way to survive any type of shopping may have had more than 1 or two a couple of years back before our Holiday shopping spree. His poor mother...I'm not sure she really needed a steering wheel cover. That might have been the same year he almost got kicked out of Target for playing basketball in the isle!

Now I shop alone. Amen!

Best Wishes and Happy Holiday!