Here are your Christmas Shopping choices:Choice 1
You drive from home in the rain to the City/Town Centre. Find a car park (usually pretty expensive rates). You walk to the shops in the rain and spend the next 5 hours wandering aimlessly and robotically around the shops browsing and selecting presents. Getting colder, getting more and more irritated by the bustle and barging of hundreds of other impatient shoppers. They appear to have no awareness that you are standing beside them. Getting wetter as you dodge in and out of the shops. Constant temperature changes so that you are either freezing cold outside in the rain or boiling hot inside the shops. Eventually you get back to the car fully loaded with bags and parcels. You load the boot and eventually get home – it’s still raining and you get wetter unloading the car. Eventually you sit down to enjoy that long awaited cuppa.
Choice 2
Do it all from the warmth and comfort of your own home on the Internet. (In my case Annie is the in-house expert)
Is it just me or is this a no-brainer?
4 comments:
It isn't just you, but I have a much different take on the subject. When I used to shop for the holidays, I liked it much more than mail-order or internet shopping. Here's why: Many of us do not live in the city or shop in the city. We live in the country or the suburbs and we shop locally or drive to a suburban sprawl mall, where parking is free. Yes, we have to put up with some of the hassles of the crowds, but some of us enjoy that and are not put off by it. The weather is going to be the weather no matter what we want, and we have to take care to dress properly for it--you deal with rain, but we often deal with snow and ice this time of year. Internet shopping is OK for items such as books, CDs, and the like, but many of us really desire the tactile and full sensory experience of an item before purchasing it. Finally, some of us (like my wife and I) gave up the entire Christmas shopping idea several years ago--we give jars of homemade salsa and boxes of cookies we buy from the Girl Scouts. And we buy each other good whiskey and from the local shop, where they stock 100 different single malts! That's the easiest!
I think you have probably cracked it Mike – giving up on the entire Christmas shopping is one attractive option! – Enjoy your Whiskey!
BAH Humbug :-)
Unlike mike I didn't give up shopping for christmas - however I agree I do like to see it before I buy. It's a pain and I try to do it all in one day - work people get gift certificates so that just leaves family. Just human nature for me to stimulate the senses before the follow through with the purchase of the product. :)
Just to let you know I ALWAYS ask my kids what they want for xmas.... then I buy them what I want. At least they get to "anticipate" what they may or may not get !!!
Hi Carol – welcome to Simplicity Blog and thanks for more sound advice about Christmas shopping!
Annie and I will go for a day to the City between now and the big day – we start off together – then we go our separate ways for an hour or two on our secret exploration to buy for each other …. Then it’s a case of making sure we smuggle the bags into the hiding place at home without the other seeing them …. It’s all good fun. As for children I still get a lump in my throat when I see the absolute joy on a child’s face at this time.
Post a Comment