Christmas shopping

 

Christmas shopping

🎅🎄🎁😇

I have been Christmas shopping all afternoon. I am exhausted and I haven’t even left the house! 🙁😟😕

Have I finished? No!😉

How’s your shopping going? 

Christmas!

Christmas is just around the corner!

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Only 137 shopping days left until Christmas. I received my first Christmas catalogue today! Though this seems early it is actually 16 days later than the first one to arrive in 2011.

Shopping and other trials

Shopping! Don’t you just love it? Well, actually, no. If I could shop in solitude – oh, all right, with just a few people around me, I might enjoy it, but trawling round the shops, after negotiating car parks designed for very small, narrow cars and extremely thin, limber drivers, judging by the paltry parking spaces, is not my idea of a pleasurable excursion. Naturally, I have been able to secure a spot only after I have reached the top level, out in the cold.

The shops are too hot; I appreciate that the employees need to work in comfortable conditions but I only have two temperatures – cold or hot – and I dress appropriately for outdoors. Consequently, I glow (ladies never sweat – that’s for horses) profusely and unflatteringly as I queue to look at objects I might be tempted to buy, but usually am not, and then queue again to pay for the things I decided in desperation to get anyway.

Then there’s the ‘music.’ An oft-repeated loop of determinedly ‘seasonal’ songs cuts across concentration. As closing time nears the recording is changed for something zippier to get the customers moving. To my intense irritation I find myself singing along to ‘Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree’ and ‘Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland’ and other similarly horrible festive songs. Outside, the Salvation Army is making real music and causing sinners like me to feel abjectly ashamed of myself.

Staggering back to the car park with carrier bags cutting into my fingers, trying to protect purse and car keys from the hordes of pickpockets I know are watching my every move, I attempt to enter a lift (elevator) – but I have to queue again. Playing sardines was a favourite game when I was eight years old at parties with friends. It’s not so much fun in a mucky lift with assorted strangers whose personal habits are not very attractive. Smokers’ breath, beer (at this time of day?) coffee (ugh) obviously no time for a shower this month, fish and chips every day for a week judging by the stench from your hair and clothes, can’t afford a dentist - or toothpaste, apparently – all these elements assail my nostrils and goodness only knows what scents emanate from me (I eat a lot of garlic!)

Eventually, I reach the level on which I parked my car and begin to relax. Just one more thing to do and then I can go home in my private, comfortable transport. I look for the ticket machine so that I can pay my parking fine fee and discover that it’s on the floor below. Gritting my teeth, I dump my purchases in the car and trail back to the lifts. I queue again. 

A lift arrives and disgorges a gang of giggling teenagers and a platoon of baby buggies. In the lift a small child presses all the buttons – ‘He likes doing that, don’t you, darlin’?’ and ‘darlin’’, who is about four years old,  doesn’t remove his dummy (pacifier) to answer, but nods his head and grins at me. So we go all the way to the ground floor, stopping on every level to let out or take on more passengers. I know there’s a machine on this level so I leave the lift, queuing of course, to do so, and walk purposefully if rather wearily to it. There are five people in front of me and I join the back of the queue. The contraption stops working and an official is summoned. He shakes his head and tells us we must use the device on the second level. Back in the lift lobby I join the queue. I’m so tired now that I’m beginning to have difficulty focusing. I would have stopped for some refreshment but that would have required queuing . . .

Eventually, having paid for my ticket, I reach my car and begin the spiral journey downwards to the exit and soon find myself queuing again. It’s a very slow-moving queue as more and more cars join at every level. By the time I have exited the car park the roads are busy with hundreds of vehicles all travelling in the same direction as me. The road going in the other direction is sparsely occupied by a few cars spinning merrily along, their occupants looking fresh and happy.

After a stop-start journey which takes three times longer than usual I arrive home. ‘Good trip?’ enquires a jovial voice. ‘How about a cup of tea?’ At least I don’t have to queue to make the tea.

I don’t like going out to shop which is why I make most of my purchases online. I can peruse catalogues or websites, compare prices, select sizes and colours, order easily and wait for delivery, all in the comfort and peace (relative peace – all things are relative!) of my own home. It is not always trouble-free.

Earlier this year:

First computer - case damaged. 

Replacement computer - internal damage

Yesterday:

The Jiffy bag was damaged so Royal Mail put the whole mess in a polythene bag and taped it up. It may look like a squid but is actually webbing for our settees. Generations of dogs leaping on them has nearly worn the straps through. 

I had to sign for this delivery!

Our kitchen was covered in grey 'snow' - the soft, cushioning material had escaped its cover!

However my Christmas gift shopping has gone well. Everything has been delivered and all I need to do is wrap and label.

Christmas food shopping is a little different. To obtain the desired delivery slot I have to book it three to four weeks before I need the shopping. I was a little slow this year so the times nearer Christmas Eve had gone and I had to settle for today. I always worry until the order has arrived. One year, the turkey was mysteriously ‘unavailable’ despite having been ordered weeks earlier. Today’s order was almost complete – but free range eggs were unobtainable, as was the beef joint and some cheese. The brandy butter was replaced with cream and vegetarian mince was substituted for the vegetarian roast. 

So I shall have to venture forth yet again this year to endure the crowds, the traffic, the tinny sound of piped music – but at the same time I shall be entranced by the excitement of small children and the twinkling lights in the trees and something of the spirit of Christmas will be visited upon me in time to listen to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast live on Christmas Eve from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge.

Here is a clip from King’s College Choir in 2009.

I wish you all a Very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful and Fulfilling 2011.

Christmas approaches . . .

I've just been reading Owlfarmer's post on gifts and it sparked memories of Christmases past.

In the post-war years of the mid to late forties the UK was struggling to recover from years of devastation and hardship. Food was still rationed and people thought carefully about how they used their allowances. Christmas was a time to enjoy something a little different, a treat.

In our house the children would wake to the exciting heaviness of a Christmas stocking at our feet. Packed inside would be all manner of small inexpensive gifts and in the toe of the stocking we would find a tangerine and a handful of nuts.

I recall my mother drawing and plucking a chicken for our Christmas dinner. Chicken was a luxury and we had one at Christmas and perhaps another at Easter. Dinner was roast chicken 'with all the trimmings' which allowed the meat to go a little further. My mother cooked roast potatoes, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, carrots, giblet gravy and bread sauce. To follow there were mince pies and Christmas pudding with brandy butter with the anticipation of finding a silver sixpence in your helping. Christmas crackers were fun and we liked the silly hats and trinkets inside and the groaning jokes.

In the afternoon we would have the gift-giving ceremony. Each child would take it in turn to pick a parcel from beneath the tree and give it to the named recipient. We would all watch and enjoy the pleasure of the unwrapping and the final showing of the gift. Often it would be an item of clothing which would have to be tried on and modelled for our delight. When that present had been thoroughly appreciated by everyone the next package would be selected. So an enjoyable afternoon would be spent giving, receiving and thanking.

Tea followed – Christmas cake with silver ball decorations and a Father Christmas standing on the white icing 'snow'. After that, before bed-time, we would play board games or cards or read. It was a warm, relaxed time in front of a crackling fire. Thinking back now I wonder just how relaxed my mother felt by the end of the day!

On Boxing Day we would have soup, cold meat and bubble and squeak. My parents tried to make the special feeling of Christmas last a while longer by holding back a few little gifts which were always said to be 'from the tree.' Around the room were small boxes of chocolates, dates, figs and bowls of fruit that we could sample. We enjoyed them for their rarity and because it would be another year before such a feast was spread again.

Shopping for food in those days entailed visiting many specialist shops – bread from the baker, dry goods like tea and flour from the grocer, meat from the butcher, fruit and vegetables from the greengrocer, fish from the fishmonger, confectionery from the sweet shop. The shopping list would follow the route to be taken, starting with the greengrocer at the far end of town. Shops were open for a matter of hours, from 8:00 or 9:00 a.m until 5:30 or 6:00 p.m for five or five and a half days. They shut at close of business on Christmas Eve and opened again on the first working day after Boxing Day. If someone had neglected to buy something she needed she would have to go without it until the shops were re-opened. Provided all the necessities were in the larder there was a tremendous feeling of relief once there was no possibility of shopping again until after the holiday.

Now everything is available throughout the year. The seasonal foods no longer hold sway since whatever is desired may be purchased at any time, fresh, frozen, dried, produced locally or thousands of miles away. In the western world we live in a bubble of self-indulgence, able to satisfy our every whim and fancy at any time of day or night. If the local shop is closed there's always an all-night garage or a twenty-four-hour store if we really cannot wait for our fix of whatever we want.

During the last twenty years or so Christmas increasingly has developed into a festival of greed and commercialism. From August the Christmas catalogues start to arrive, each charity exhorting expenditure on often tawdry items. Later 'Good causes' beg us to support them and in December Salvation Army and silver bands pluck at our heart and purse strings with their brassy renditions of carols, many of which will be unfamiliar to young school-children. The supermarkets blare out endless repetitions of ghastly versions of seasonal songs old and new and worse still, shoppers find themselves singing along. Houses sprout unlikely decorations – blinking, twinkling, nerve-rending flashing lights in all colours while jolly Santas stride across roof-tops and inflatable reindeer prance behind them. Is it because our winters are so drear that we embrace these gaudy decorations? Sunlight may be scarce but we can make our own brightness – and it all looks so sad when Christmas is over. There's a brief renewal in the lead-up to New Year's Eve, a final flash of brightness of fireworks as the Old Year dies and finally we face cold, dull January and wonder if there will ever be dazzling days again.

Where is the true meaning of Christmas now? Is our anticipation always to be disappointed because we have so much all the time and salve our consciences for those who have nothing by dropping coins in a collection tin? Where is the joy? For me it is in the faces of my family in the moments when they are laughing or day-dreaming or simply enjoying each other's company, in the wonderment of small children as they see something they have never seen before, in the quiet moments when walking alone or waking in the night when everyone else sleeps. These times are present throughout the year but take on special significance at Christmas. Whatever your beliefs or lack of them, this annual holiday affords a time for reflection. Take a moment from the rushing crowds or the press of visitors and look up, maybe (probably!) through the rain at the vastness of the sky and consider your place in the universe. We are insignificant organisms struggling towards the light. We came from stardust and to stardust we will return.

'For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return' Genesis 3:19

Thought for the day

Shopping on an empty stomach leads to a trolley full of forbidden delights.