I ADORE Christmas! But Christmas Shopping? Bah, humbug!
I think I start most Nutty’s blogs with a sentence or two exclaiming how quickly the year passes, usually something along the lines of “can it really be [insert month] already?!”. So as tempting as it may be to open this one with a similar remark about how crazy it seems that we have reached December, I will resist doing so. Just.
Suffice to say, the radio is blasting out a constant stream of Christmas songs (not complaining - I love an Xmas tune), supermarket meal deals offer turkey and stuffing sandwiches aplenty and every theatre in the country is packed to the rafters with all things panto!
The Christmas season is well and truly upon us.
I love Christmas and everything it brings with it: family, friends, food and frivolity! Well, I say ‘everything’ - that is in fact a bit of a lie. There is one element of Christmas that I could really do without…Christmas Shopping. I really cannot stand it!
When speaking to friends about this particular Christmas necessity over the years, I have discovered that it is a bit of a divisive issue - you either love it or loathe it. I have long since stuck my flag in the latter camp. Don’t get me wrong, I adore giving gifts to people, particularly my two nephews and two nieces - their presence alone at Christmas in recent years has strengthened my love of the festive period - but it’s the seemingly interminable task of thinking of gift ideas, online scrolling, trapsing around shopping centres and wrapping them all up that I categorically do not enjoy. Actually, scrap that last - I can tolerate the wrapping.
Much of this stems from my distaste and impatience for shopping in general. My passionate loathing for Oxford St, for example, knows no bounds. As a committed south London resident, I either head to Bromley or Wimbledon to complete clothes shopping tasks, usually on a Monday morning when it is famously quiet and only when I really cannot put it off any longer. And as the festive season approaches, my procrastination intensifies and I find myself commencing the dreaded Christmas shopping tasks at a dangerously late point in the season. So tiresome do I find the whole affair that, some years ago, I couldn’t bare to think about it before I left the house to start. This meant arriving in a town centre without even a single idea of what to get anybody! I have since learnt that having a plan and making a list makes it all much more efficient and vaguely more tolerable.
I am from a reasonably large family; I have three siblings, all married and two of them with kids. So over the years the list of people to buy for has grown considerably. This meant increasingly more time and money being spent on Christmas shopping. At this point, even the most effusive festive shopping in the family started to recognise that this was all a bit unsustainable. Also, I am usually performing in a pantomime throughout December (two shows a day, six days a week) making my time around this very tight indeed. So you can imagine my sheer delight when, a few years ago, my sister suggested that we opt for Secret Santa instead. We all readily agreed, and the ongoing arrangement now is as follows: we all buy for the kids, and the nine adults in the family all draw a name out of a hat so our shopping efforts are concentrated to one single person. So cut down was my Christmas shopping time, that I almost began to enjoy it! Almost.
Some friends of mine, however, are of the complete opposite disposition - Christmas shopping they LOVE! I have had lengthy conversations with some mates about this (oh yes, our chats in the pub are certainly not wasted!). One friend told me that it is because it is an annual ritual that they enjoy it so much. Another told me that it helps to build their inner Christmas spirit. Other reasons have included the joy of festive town centres, the accompaniment of a takeaway coffee or stopping for lunch and the joy of choosing something for somebody you love. All valid reasons, even for this self confessed shopping cynic.
But enough of my Scrooge-like musings. Christmas shopping really is the only part of the entire festive period that isn’t for me. Everything else I love. And as I would like to end on a positive note, here are some of those things:
Christmas trees
Christmas lunch
Christmas cracker jokes
Christmas Films (Home Alone is a particular favourite)
Panto
Seeing friends
Mulled wine
Sending Christmas cards
Open fires
Carol concerts
Stockings
And many more…
Whatever you happen to be doing this festive period, all of us here at Nutty’s hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year.
