The Christmas Present

Some years it seems that hot on the heels of the first cuckoo of spring is the first mention of Christmas. The earliest I can recall seeing Christmas mentioned was when Debenhams installed a Christmas tree to advertise their Christmas Club...in July. This was closely followed by a local Indian restaurant imploring patrons to book early for Christmas, even before August Bank Holiday Monday. Then in 2012 when the Olympics came to London, the hullabaloo and razzmatazz that attended their preparation, delivery and aftermath put thoughts of Christmas out of the advertisers heads for a while. It was like a throwback to my youth when it seemed that there were no festive references until we had got Guy Fawkes Night out of the way. In the years since then Christmas has started to creep in a bit earlier again. By next year no doubt we will again be seeing festive advertisements before we have taken our summer holidays.

This year, and not for the first time either, Christmas has crept up on me a bit. When the first festive commercial appears on television, when the first display of Christmas cards and other goodies appear in the shops, I tend to shudder, considering it way too early, and put all thoughts of present buying and card writing out of my head. There is ages yet till I need to think of such things, I say to myself, months to do all that stuff. Then suddenly it is a week before Christmas Day itself and I still have to buy presents and post those cards (and last post is Monday, yikes!)

Buying Christmas presents is something that I have to brace myself for; it isn't that I begrudge doing it, nor spending the money, so much as I find it incredibly difficult to decide what to buy for people. I like to buy things for my family and see them open them on Christmas morning and know that they appreciate them, and more importantly, want what it is I've bought them. The flip side is the realisation that you have bought someone something that will be consigned to the cupboard or drawer and never see light of day again once Christmas Day has passed; never a nice thought.

Some people are easier to buy for than others. Generally, children are easy to buy for; there will always be toys or film or television related products that they crave. In fact it can often be difficult to know when to stop, but as they get older the decisions get more difficult. But when children are young there is nothing more enjoyable than watching them unwrap their presents on Christmas morning (provided you can delay that activity until a reasonable hour, say 6 a.m.)

 When buying for friends or relatives who have specific hobbies or collect things, then choosing gifts is easier than for those without such interests. The hardest person I ever had to buy for was my father. The old expression, "what do you buy for the man who has everything?" did not apply, more like, "what do you buy for the man who doesn't want anything?" My father wasn't interested in reading, and once he developed macular generation he couldn't read anything smaller than this font

size.

So books were out of the question. He watched little on TV, making videos or DVDs a waste of time and after he gave up brewing his own beer, his only hobby was gardening. Invariably, therefore his Christmas gifts would comprise socks, a bottle of wine, some chocolate coated Brazil nuts and a tie or a wallet. "Just what I wanted," he would exclaim, although in truth this probably applied only to those items that could be imbibed or eaten. One year I bought him some things for the garden, but the fact was, he had most of the things he needed anyway.

My mother was slightly easier to buy for. Books, DVD's, picture frames, houseplants, a jumper or fleece; these things featured large and for a couple of years we made up hampers of nice foods, the sorts of things that you wouldn't normally buy yourself, but which shops like British Home Stores  specialise in at this time of year. I confess to be being little easier to buy for than my dad was; ask me what I would like for Christmas and it is a rare year when there is anything specific that I really, really want. The odd DVD, or CD; a book perhaps or sometimes a particular item of clothing, but some years I honestly have no especial need or want. At one time, when I was single and living with my parents, we agreed a pact and didn't actually buy each other anything. Bah humbug! you might say, but why waste money, and more especially time and effort, trying to buy something for someone that they don't actually want?

As I sit here writing this I am hoping that inspiration will strike, because one present apart (which she chose for herself), I have bought nothing yet for my wife. Fortunately she is more organised and we therefore have bought presents for our daughters and other relatives, although I have no idea if she has bought me anything, since when I was asked what I would like, my mind went completely blank. As in many other ways, I am turning into my father, the man who wanted nothing. While inspiration is my biggest problem, finding the time to actually buy things for others has proven to be a bit of an obstacle as well this year. You would think that being retired I would have more time, but for some reason (and I have explored this before, see Where does the time go to?) I seem to have no time whatever. I suppose that when I worked I would take a day or two off in December and frantically do all of my present buying. Now that I have all the time in the world, I have all the reasons in the world not to go to Lakeside or Romford, the search for a parking space and hordes of other shoppers being just two.

Genuinely, this oven glove was one of my presents last year.

Were I slightly more organised I could have done my shopping online, except that presupposes that I knew what I wanted to buy. The old fashioned method of trolling round a shopping centre at least offers the advantage of inspiration occasionally striking as you walk past a shop display. And troll round a shopping centre is something I must do. Chances are if you are reading this before Christmas Day, I will be  wandering around shops with a haunted expression, in the company of large numbers of increasingly panic stricken men, on a quest for The Christmas Present.