I really ought to be ashamed of myself. This time of year, I usually write about nice things – warm things, cozy things, spiritual things. 

Instead, here we are. Again. Me. Complaining. About Christmas shopping.

Christmas just came too fast this year – too fast and a little sideways. I’m blaming the late Thanksgiving, but that might just be an excuse I tell myself so I don’t have to admit my inner Scrooge has apparently been strength training. 

The holidays are supposed to slow things down, right? That’s the sales pitch. This year, it felt more like a sprint.

Anyone who knows me knows my feelings about shopping. I don’t browse anymore. Browsing used to be pleasant. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for it.

My patience has been slowly shoplifted over the years.

I’ve also delivered my annual speech to Michelle about gift-buying. You know the one. The “let’s not just buy things so the kids have more things to open” speech. It’s a classic. I’ve been workshopping it for years. Because if I’m being honest, we’ve purchased an impressive amount of junk over the decades. Toys played with for an afternoon. Games opened, glanced at, and quietly abandoned. 

I still think about the mini-foosball table. That thing just became another flat surface to pile things on.

And don’t get me started on stockings. Actually, please do not get me started on stockings.  Half the time, the kids forget to even clear them out completely and we’ve found things from previous years in the toe area of the stockings.

Every now and then, though, you hear a story that makes you stop. Like the family where all the kids were hoping for one thing – a boat. One boat. To share. I had to sit down for that one. Or the sisters who wanted coats for Christmas. Or the little girl who asked Santa for a doll and a jump rope… and gloves and a hat for her brother. 

Which brings me to the checkout line. I found myself in one more times than I cared to this year. First of all, how is it possible that every store is understaffed during the exact season when everyone is shopping? Second, why is it always the person with three items (me) who gets stuck behind the cart filled with what I can only describe as crapola?

This is where my judgmental side fully emerged. I’m not proud of it. I’m just reporting it. I casually scanned the cart ahead of me like a detective at a crime scene. Tinted mason jar glasses. Multiple gnome cookie jars that were so ugly they had to be the result of some kind of illegal substance. Trinkets that said, “I will be in a donation box by New Year’s.”

The woman pushing the cart seemed perfectly nice. Pleasant, even. I heard her announce to her shopping partner, with a satisfied sigh, that she was all done and that everyone had “at least 12 things to unwrap.” I smiled. I nodded. I pursed my lips in what I imagine was a very polite, non-judgmental way – though internally I was delivering a full TED Talk on wasteful spending. 

My left eyebrow arched as I looked at the gnomes once more.

It wasn’t even the waiting that bothered me. I’m actually pretty calm in lines. I enter a sort of suspended animation. I do, however, get endless entertainment from the people who absolutely cannot stand still, shifting from foot to foot like they have to pee.

If I completely lost my filter, I would’ve gently suggested that tinted mason jar glasses are not timeless keepsakes, and that the gnome industry just needs to be stopped. 

But I didn’t. I stood there. Quietly judging. Like a decent person.

By the time I got to my car, I realized I might need some help. Maybe one of those Charles Dickens ghosts could visit me – The Ghost of Christmas Shopping Past, Present, and Whatever This Is. 

Maybe they could remind me to calm down, mind my business, and remember Christmas is supposed to be about joy – or at least about not glaring at strangers over gnome cookie jars.

Seriously, what is up with gnomes?

Merry Christmas to you all!