Gift Getting

I try to have all my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, but this year I seem to be running behind. As I mentioned previously, ideas for presents, which normally come so easily to me, seem to be more of a struggle this year. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it's partly because everyone has so much stuff already, maybe it’s because I’ve been dealing with other things. Whatever the reason, it's been lagging but this lag seems to be slightly improving and I'm now making some headway. Sort of.

Like most people, I guess, I do much of my shopping online and when I stop to think about it (which I try not to do) I feel a little bad about it. I'm one of the multitude of people who are contributing to the decline of the malls and small-town establishments. I'm not all that upset about the malls. Other than when the kids were little, I’ve never been a big fan of the malls. It's not that I hope for their demise or anything, but this time of year especially, they're filled with people. People are not my thing. 

I kind of like my small town, though. I even like some of the people in it. When the kids were little, I enjoyed bundling up on a cold winter night and taking them out to several of the stores, in search of presents for them to buy for the people on their lists. For a few years, I would have each of them pick out a toy to contribute to the Toys for Tots campaign.

Now, with the three older kids having the nerve to live their own lives, I don't have that chance to walk around town with then at Christmastime. But there's always Sam. 

As recently as last year, Sam and I would bundle up and head out together to do some Christmas shopping for the people he was buying presents for. But this year, Sam bought all of his Christmas gifts from a tag sale which was being held at Grandma's retirement community. So this year, when it comes to Christmas shopping, he's all set. 

So, my choices for doing Christmas shopping are to shop with Sam (which could be a problem,) shop alone (which holds no appeal to me at all) or shop online (which holds little appeal to me, but it’s easy, relatively speaking.)

I’m not going to shop alone - even if I wanted to (as it turns out.) When I tried to scoot out the other day, just to grab a quick gift, Sam asked where I was going. I told him that I was going to run a quick errand and I'll be right back and it was ok if he didn’t want to go with me and he can go on the computer instead. He said he would use the bathroom real quick and come along. 

So, that didn’t work. 

The problem with Christmas shopping with Sam is not the actual shopping with Sam (which I enjoy quite a bit.) The problem is Christmas shopping with Sam - when I’m the one trying to buy the gifts.

I can’t really buy Christmas presents in front of Sam because the thing is, I'm not sure how Sam feels about Santa Claus. Sam’s well past the age where this shouldn't even be a consideration. But Sam is Sam and like my other kids, I'll let him believe in the things he wants to believe in, for as long as he wants to believe in them. And for Sam, when it comes to Santa and almost everything else, I think he likes things just the way they are. 

So, anyway, other than the gifts that I pick up throughout the year, this year, I've been doing most of my shopping online... with varying degrees of success.

One gift I ordered, which, by the way, was a little difficult to find, finally arrived the other day- or at least the box finally arrived. Sam brought in the mail, like usual, and, like usual, when I got home from work, he pointed out that I got a box in the mail. 

This box looked as if it have been kicked all along the route from the store right up to my front porch. The box was smashed and torn open on two ends with the tape loosely holding it together. When I picked it up, it was so light, I wondered what I had ordered. Did I order a scarf? Did I order a blanket? A sock, maybe?

I opened the box - which wasn't hard because it was pretty much falling apart - and there was nothing inside but a couple of pieces of bubble wrap. I looked at the mailing labeling, which I could barely make out, and eventually figured out what used to be in there. Luckily, after a little leg work and some back and forth, the seller agreed to refund my money and they apologized, saying that they would have replaced it -but it is no longer available. 

So that’s one thing that I had crossed off my list that I now had to put back on. 

Yesterday, when I got home from work, there was another package - this one propped up right next to Sam. Unlike every other item I ever ordered, this item didn’t come in a brown cardboard box. No, this one looks like they took it right off the store shelf, slapped a mailing label on it and shipped it out. 

There it was, exposed for all to see (and by "all," I mean "Sam.") And while the gift wasn’t for Sam, I was now faced with the same dilemma that keeps me from taking him with me when I go Christmas shopping. If he sees this under the tree on Christmas morning, then what? It looks like this one is going to have to be a birthday gift instead. 

But I'm getting there, I'm getting there. I've only got a few more presents to buy for Christmas. And then I have to wrap them all. But I can do that a little over time. And if nothing else, at least I'm ahead of the game when it comes to buying a birthday present.