10 December 2004
Christmas Shopping
One exchange you'll very rarely hear in polite society is this one:
Colleague A: "Any exciting plans for the weekend?"
Colleague B: "Exciting? Wooh-yeah! I should coco! I'm going Christmas shopping on saturday! It's going to be fantastic! I can't wait!"
Christmas shopping is not fun. It is not supposed to be fun. It is just supposed to happen. And there's nothing you can do about it.
Because we like giving presents, we like recieving them, and because we like these things, we have to Do the Christmas Shopping. Unless we have time to handmake our gifts for all our friends and family, in which case we are either Catherine Zeta Jones or in prison, two states-of-being desirable only to dirty old retrobates.
Christmas shopping is not like regular shopping. Regular shopping takes place between february and late November ('January sales shopping" takes place in January, which is veryvery similar to Christmas shopping, but without the annoying philanthropy angle. You get to keep everything in January).
The logical part of your brain tells you that it should - at least in theory - be possible to Do the Christmas Shopping more than 4 weeks before the Christmas happens, but in reality we find it impossible.
"Well, I couldn't possibly do Christmas shopping in September! Everything I bought would go off!"
"What, like the knitwear?"
"Yes."
"And that Godfather boxset?"
"Oh Yes. Goes mouldy if you buy it too far before Christmas"
"The vase and coaster set?"
"Apparently they explode if not purchased in December"
"Really?"
"Yes. It was on the news."
"Was it?"
"no"
Maybe it's a natural thing. We know full well that if we bought the presents too early, we would get excited and give our loved ones the gift for no reason, on a random date, which just wouldn't do. We have to wait until Jesus' birthday, instead, when it really means something to us.
[I'm being uncommonly mean, how out-of-character. There is something nice about all exchanging gifts on the same day. So we wait. Because on the day, all tearing paper and hugging and thanking, it's nice to all e opening things all at once. There. That was slightly season-of-good-will-ish, wasn't it? No pleasing some people]
And all the manufacturers make us do Christmas shopping at the last minute too, rushing things out in the weeks before Christmas, knowing that we want to give the newest, the flashiest, nothing they can possibly already own, the absolute brand-new-bestest. They make it slightly too chancy to buy online, in case it doesn't arrive in time, or your nearest and dearest have to take reciept of the box, and start guessing early.
So into the streets we go. Thinking it will be quieter at a lunchtime, or perhaps if we go early in the morning, or maybe after work?....
Well, it won't. It will be hell, whenever we go.
It's funny - Christmas shopping has a particular smell. It smells of plastic wrap, and wrapping paper, new books, fear, panic and greed. Unless you are the most organised person in Christmasdom, and have made a list, and know where every single thing in the shop can be found (and if you are, you are a robot, and have no friends and family anyway, why go shopping?) then you will be sucked into the whirling cloud of anxiety and aggression that is the Christmas shop.
Pity the fool that gets between you and that Body Shop Berrytastic Bath Basket.
Fear for the man who steps between your reaching hand and the last mini iPod on the shelf. Have mercy on the woman that also happens to buy the same pair of oversized shaped-like-a-puppy slippers. What was she thinking? They belong to you! The heaving crowds and rising tide of panic brings everyone down to a level. And it's not a nice level. It is a very cross level, where people don't really like other people very much. Good will does not live on this level. Whoever he may be. Although I'd like to meet him. I've heard he's very good.
What will happen if you cannot find that perfect pair of earrings for Mum? What will happen if your beloved doesn't get that longed for chrome juicer? What if you can't find that perfect nephew gift you saw in the magazine? What if someone gets in your way? What if you have to get them something else instead? What will happen?
You know - you know really, deep down - that they would love you just as much. That you would continue to be the same as you were to each other, juicer, boots, earrings or nothing. You know, deep down, that loving people just is, without the stuff. It just is.
However, the Christmas Shopping NEED comes upon you, and all of that is just all so much blah-blah-blah. There are only two weeks for me to do ALL THE SHOPPING IN THE WORLD. I have to do it now! Every piece of media I see is telling me to. And also some voices. Don't know what's up with that. But get me to the shops. Just get me to the shops. Hand me that debit card, I have debiting to do. I've sharpened my elbows, I've polished my eat-shit grin. Let me at'em.
Before I go, spray me down with that Eau de Christmas-Shopping we keep at the back of the cabinet for the rest of the year, will you? Come on. Splash it all over. I mean business this time.
Now get out of my way: I'm a consumer.