I did my Christmas pressie shopping yesterday. Took me about seven minutes sitting in my nice comfy chair trying not to get depressed at Amazon’s crude, glitzy and over-stuffed website. Does anyone else think it far too full, with far too much information?
Anyway, it’s done, and will arrive in cardboard boxes over the next few days, well in time for wrapping and lodging under the tree. We’re going to do a quick Christmas shop in Swansea on Monday and I hope to find one more present just to prove that I can still do regulation Christmas shopping in real shops, just like we all used to do.
For me, online shopping justifies the Internet all by itself. When I think of all those horrid cold and wet December days I’ve spent trudging from shop to shop, sometimes uplifted by a feeling of Christmas spirit, sometimes not, I’m inclined to nominate Amazon for the Nobel Peace prize. For me, they’ve done more for my peace of mind than all the presidents you can name.
We’ll do our rather few Christmas cards today and over the weekend. These get fewer and fewer every year as the list of people who’ve drifted away grows longer and ever longer. Don’t believe all the stories of jolly families you see on TV. Now that religion has been stripped from the festival it’s nothing more than a major annual end-of-year pissup. Come Christmas Eve, we’ll close the door, open the first bottle, and make a start on reducing the food and booze mountain that will have grown in our store by then.
Out of my feelings for the way it used to be, I shall wish all my friends, and everyone I meet a truly merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and, secretly, I shall pause to think of those who don’t have it so good, or so happy. Other than that, let it snow. Or, more likely, rain.
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