Seasonal Stress – Shopping Days to Christmas
- 9 Dec 07, 01:19 AM
“I would like to ask why it is that shopping, an activity so pleasurable for the other 11 months of the year, should suddenly become so stressful in December. Of course we already know the answer to that one. Yes, the annual pressure of buying a selection of entirely inappropriate gifts for people who neither want, need or appreciate them.
It’s that awful routine of racing around the shops from morning to midnight doing your world famous impression of a headless chicken with attention deficit disorder, chucking things into baskets and repeating the seasonal mantras “That’ll do rightly…..too bad if he already has one….she can always take it back if it doesn’t fit”! Ah, the season of good will! And anyway, you just buy the same old stuff every year so it’s not like anybody is expecting anything new or novel.
To add insult to injury you find yourself in the company of thousands of other shoppers doing and saying exactly the same thing. Actually, spending a Saturday in town in the couple of weeks before Xmas should be compulsory training for all soldiers about to go into battle, and make no mistake, it is a battlefield out there and she who hesitates is lost. You’ll notice I said ‘she’ and for those men among you who are in touch with your feminine side I apologise, but, in my experience, the of the bulk of the seasonal shopping does fall to the ladies – from the gifts to the grub to the goodies it’s usually us out there on the front line.
Shoulders and elbows are my weapons of choice for fighting my way through the crowds, and you have to keep your wits about you and your reflexes razor sharp for those ‘last one left’ moments. Picture the scene… there are two of you in front of the shelf and you know the only thing standing between triumph and having to traipse around town for another two hours is her. You’ve got to be decisive, move like lightening, grab an go as fast as you can to the cash desk. Result!
Nowhere is this skill more essential than when faced with the ‘3 for 2’ scenario. You see, it is almost impossible to find a third thing you like, and the longer those offers have been on display the harder it gets. But obviously because it is a free gift, and at Christmas nothing is free, you have to find something. As you sift through the shelves you’ll need all your cunning and persistence because the good stuff goes first, but, if you’re very lucky, you may actually spot a gem of a third item. Otherwise you must invoke another one of the mantras “it’s free, she never exactly pushes the boat out for me, and if she doesn’t like it……..” You know the rest.
At this point it’s back to the blokes, and again I hate to generalise but how often do men think they can get away with those lines like “you’re much better at all that than I am” or “I wouldn’t know what to get” and then there’s the old favourite “I’ll just give you the money.”
Now, there is a part of me that wants to scream “get your fat behind out of that chair, turn off the telly and go out and get your own presents!” But it is a truth universally acknowledged that ultimately it is less stressful to do it yourself. You know as well as I do that they’ll leave it to Christmas Eve, about an hour before the shops close, and there will be nothing left. So, if you can't change them turn this “you just get it for me” attitude to your advantage. Most men will indeed give you anything you ask for as long as they don’t have to actually go to the bother of choosing, identifying and sourcing it themselves. Indeed, you'll have their credit card details before you can say “multi-story carpark.” Talking of which….
They cost a fortune! Another reason to hate shopping at Christmas, then there’s the rain and the rotten weather…and before you start screaming at me about online shopping can I just say that’s all well and good if you know what you’re after but I never do. And to tell the truth, even though I’m moaning, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without that hustle and bustle and a bruise or two.
So let the shopping commence, let the socks, perfume and pyjamas know I’m on my way. I’ve made a list, I’ve checked it twice and I know I’ll forget to bring it like I do every year. By the way, there are 16 shopping days to Christmas.
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