Confessions Of A Shitty Christmas Shopper
Ah… Christmas, you gorgeous festive beast! Here you are again.
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Season of yuletide joy and goodwill to all men and all that.
I love Christmas. I love the decorating, and the mince pies. I love putting up the Christmas tree, and the hygge. The food, the parties, and enough booze flowing to pickle a horse.
Who doesn’t love Christmas in all it’s twinkly glory?
Only… There’s one teensy tiny problem…
I’m a shitty Christmas shopper
It’s not that I don’t have an idea of what to get, or that I don’t get it sorted out in the end. It’s just that I’m consistently shit at organising it all until the last minute.
The process usually starts in November when I resolve that this will be the year when I get it all done early. I start making lists, dreaming up lovely fluffy Pinterest-worthy plans, and pre-emptively patting myself on the back for having my shit together.
And then I do f*ck all about it.
I don’t mean for this to happen. I sort everyone else out by giving out ideas (as requested by my family) usually with links to the items in question to avoid cock-ups, which is super-helpful for the recipients but stupidly time consuming.
Then, once the heat is off and I’m not getting nagged by my Mum, I procrastinate like a bastard, and end up leaving my own purchases until the last minute.
Ultimately this leads to a blind panic and last minute impulse buying, culminating in a 6 hour wrapping session on Christmas eve, when I’d far rather be knocking back fizz and scoffing Quality Streets in front of the Christmas telly.
I’ve always been a horrible shopper. I’ve never loved it. There have been times when felt that perhaps I’m missing the gene other women have for giving a shit about shoes.
I don’t even like clothes shopping. I usually wait until I need loads of things and try and blitz town, buying anything I think might work in as few shops as possible, try everything on at home and usually have to go back into town to return about 80% of it because it actually looks a bit shit on.
Confession Time…
Bearing these factors in mind, I will admit that I have committed many cardinal sins of Christmas shopping. These include (but are not limited to):-
~ Being a horrible Secret Santa. I mean, really; I say I’m all in, but then the night before I’m supposed to bring my gift in I remember that I’ve forgotten, and end up rifling through drawers and cupboards in my house looking for anything that might possibly pass as a Secret Santa gift.
Past horrors include an ancient bottle of Body Shop Banana shampoo and matching soaps, and a gift box of vinaigrettes.
~ Forgetting the obligatory gift for my kids’ teachers. (To remedy, see above).
~ Losing all sense of how many gifts I’ve bought for each child, realising on Christmas Eve that one has a few more than the other. Then changing the recipient of the most ambiguous items to level things out (yes I know, rubbish eh?!? Thankfully my two eldest have some shared interests so I was able to camouflage my mistake a bit.)
~ Writing out my Christmas cards and then forgetting to post them… I’m currently trying to remember what I wrote in them last year to decide whether it’s appropriate to just send them out this year instead.
~ Forgetting an entire person’s present. Yes. I’ve actually done this before. Mortifying. Thankfully it was an adult, so I was able to give booze as a gift. It still looked a bit shit but at least I didn’t come up empty handed.
~ Buying entirely through my Amazon account, due to sheer lateness and the need for swift delivery. Last year there were so many boxes stacked up that I considered telling my daughter that Amazon Prime was in fact the name of Santa’s grotto.
~ Buying the ingredients for Christmassy type baking and then doing f*ck all with it. I would not be lying if I told you that I have jars of mincemeat, still untouched, that I’ve bought for the past 4 years consecutively.
Ultimately I’m sure you’d agree – I’m brimming with good festive intentions. I’m just chronically rubbish about implementing them. With a bit of luck you’re a lot less shit at this than me… Just don’t judge (or tell Santa, because I’m fairly sure this all pretty much decimates my chances of ‘nice’ list status for all time.)
Given the tone of this particular post I’m probably not in a position to write a review blog of the best of the net on this topic later in the week. (And also because: Amazon. My work here is done.) However, you can always check out my other blogs here, and you can catch my next blog next week, so keep your eyes peeled.
May all your festive frolics go without a hitch. Enjoy all the food and all the booze,
Merry Christmas Motherlovers
Kate xx
This post was first published here. For morw from The Mum Conundrum click here and there and everywhere.
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