A quick glance at the calendar and panic began to set in with the realization that Christmas is less than two weeks away. I’m thinking I’m going to be in trouble when it comes to the gifting side of the holiday this year.
Last week I made my way around town trying to find some inspiration for a list of things to get for my dear wife, Danny, and I’ve got to be honest the inspiration just did not materialize. I like to find neat, different things to surprise her — and our daughter as well — with on Christmas morn, but this year nothing seems to grab my attention.
I wandered around one store long enough, I feel certain, to give the impression of a shoplifter and left with only a set of oven mitts for myself, and not a single gift for either of them. Yikes!
Danny has plenty of clothes and those kinds of things and I typically purchase the wrong size, or shade, or something, without specific directions right down to where the item is located in the store. So clothes are out of the question.
Lord knows we don’t need anything for the house. Lord knows, as a matter of fact, that we don’t have anywhere in the house to put anything else. We need to have a post holiday yard sale. The Lord surely knows that.
I think I used up all of the jewelry options years ago with diamonds, and pearls, and gold and silver this, or that, or the other. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in that department after all these years either. Plus we seldom get dressed up and go out anymore.
Back in the old days we would get a mailbox full of cool little gift catalogs, and the newspaper would be stuffed with sales circulars from all the stores. That made shopping a lot easier. It especially made list making easier when it came to ideas for the perfect package to wrap up and put under the tree.
These days one has to either go walk around a store — been there, done that already to no avail — to get a brilliant idea or turn to the darn Internet and see what kind of crazy options are there.
In my opinion turning to the Internet is just opening a Pandora’s box of emails, and popup ads, and text messages with all kinds of offers on things one may or may not be interested in, or was only interested in for a moment. It is a never ending flood of useless information.
Along that same line, I almost thought I wasn’t going to get out of the store last week with those oven mitts because I didn’t want to give the clerk my telephone number. Heck, I don’t even answer the majority of the calls I get already because somebody, somewhere, is trying to sell me something they think I need, much more than I think I need the same. Text messaging is the same way.
So what to do, what to do, what to do?
At this writing on Monday I’m still stumped. I do have some Christmas music playing in the background as inspiration, but it isn’t helping much and as a matter of fact I think it might be bringing me down rather than perking me up.
Perhaps I need some eggnog. I’ve been trying to stay off that addictive elixir as long as possible this season because my belt is already a notch longer and I have yet to take a sip of the thick, sweet, delicious concoction that I used to down by the gallon. No more, no more.
I do have a couple of unique ideas up my sleeve, but can’t expand upon those because Danny reads this column before you do and that would ruin the whole element of surprise. So, I suppose, I’ll have to go back to the drawing board sometime this week and go do some more wandering around hoping to get poked in the eye by an idea.
If you happen to be a worker in one on of the stores, rest assured I’m not filling my pockets with merchandise, I’m just trying to make me a list, so I can check it twice while there is still time to do the checking.
Next week will be too late. I don’t want to have to deal with that crazy last minute shopping rush, and to be honest I don’t think a thing on the shelves is going to change between now and then.
Wish me luck. I’m wishing you luck too if you have found yourself in a similar predicament this Christmas. You better hurry though, the big day is almost upon us.
