When it comes to shopping I’m not quite in the mainstream, but the other side doesn’t have a majority either.

According to a Rasmussen Report poll released over the weekend, 39 percent of Americans consider holiday shopping an unpleasant chore. Less than half – 43 percent – think it’s fun.

Yes, that’s me lumped in there with the 39 percent of the country that’s Grinches. Except hating shopping doesn’t mean I hate Christmas. Quite to the contrary.

There was a day when I loved the whole holiday gift-giving thing. As a teen, I’d spend hours cloistered in my room wrapping the entire family’s presents, adding elaborate bows and bedazzling ribbons.

Once I started earning my own money, I couldn’t wait to purchase the perfect gift for everyone on my list. Over the years, though, I started to wear down as perfect gifts were dismissed with a sniff. Or worse.

Plus I’ve never been a shopper. I’m strictly a goal-oriented buyer: Get in, get it, get out. I even purchase clothes that way. I lack the patience to be a bargain hunter, and I prefer bed to shivering in a parking lot the Friday after Thanksgiving, though I did go out later Friday morning this year. I had no choice. We were out of town, the guys were awake and the rest of the house was asleep. After the second request to close our bedroom door, we left for breakfast and Target.

I actually made another trip later in the day, after I’d noticed a gift from the guys’ list on sale for cheaper than I knew I could get it for online.

It still wasn’t any fun, though. Not like it used to be. Neither were my online sessions that finished the deed late Monday when I clicked “submit” on my final order around 10 p.m. Whew. Thank God that’s over with. Except for taking the guys shopping for each other, which I actually still enjoy because they get such a kick out of it.

And now that the unpleasant chore is done, I can move on to the things that are really fun.

Projects and cookie-baking with the guys. Crafting the small handmade gifts they love to give. Going to their Christmas programs in eager anticipation of mangled lyrics that will be family folklore for decades to come. Wrapping presents for the kids the guys select every year from a giving tree – it’s amazing how excited they get about buying gifts for people they don’t even know. Watching movies they memorized long ago. There’s nothing like hearing a 4-year-old vow, “You can’t fire me, I quit.”

I thought I’d recover my gift-giving enthusiasm once the guys came along, but it seems that the opposite has happened. I’ve instead discovered that I’d rather be doing things than buying things.

Copyright 2009 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:

None Found

Popularity: 1% [?]