The Joys of Holiday Shopping

19 Dec, 2011Deals, Holidays, Rush

There’s Black Friday, Cyber Monday and then Total Chaos as you realize half your holiday shopping isn’t done yet. As the pressure mounts to pick out the perfect gifts for your friends and family, your wallet is often getting smaller while your headache is getting bigger all the time.

Holiday shopping should be a relaxed stroll through a garland-draped mall, window shopping while carolers in Victorian garb sweetly sing about season’s greetings and being waited upon by knowledgeable, friendly salespersons. That’s the ideal scenario created by the media and one that we all want to embrace and experience. However, holiday shopping is sometimes as fierce and dangerous as wild-boar hunting only you don’t get to wear a safari helmet for protection.

Shopping carts attack from the rear, nipping at your heels, while over-sized baby strollers roll over your toes. Pushing and shoving is expected if you dare get near any 75-percent off merchandise and the music you hear the most is wailing infants who just want to go home. Look out if an electric scooter and its occupant wants to get to the waffle iron display or has a yen for a slice of pizza from the food court, you could end up needing medical help if you happen to be in the way.

Sometimes we can’t help but wonder what’s happened to peace on earth and where has it gone? Can we possibly find it shopping for holiday gifts at the mall? It seems that fighting for parking spaces has become a winter sport and pedestrians are often treated as having as much value as a losing lottery ticket.

Still we endure because most of us love shopping and despite some random rudeness or parking issues that pop up during the gift-buying season, we get to the mall with rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes and happy faces because the joy of the hunt is addictive and finding the right gift for everyone on our list is a gratifying goal that warms our hearts.

Locating the perfect blouse for Aunt Kay or a hand-knit scarf for Cousin Emma makes shopping fun. Checking prices, smelling perfumes, looking for mark-downs and sales, and grabbing a coffee to sip on as we meander through the mall are all part of the holiday shopping game where the winner gets the best buy in the store, or maybe even in the mall.

Holiday shopping may be stressful, but a shift in attitude brings the magic back to the mall and the moment. Of course stores are more crowded, stock may be low and a few Scrooges might be working at the cash register or grumbling about how long it’s taking you to find your charge card, but that’s only a small part of the holiday shopping experience. Look around and you’ll see joyful people everywhere shopping for the people they love and that’s a reminder that love is really what the holidays are all about.

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