1 post tagged “lydia chin”
ells are ringing, and whether you love it or you dread it, Christmas season is back. I spent most of yesterday afternoon and today's lunchtime soaking myself in this "Christmassy" experience and there's loads to hate and there's loads to love. Let me run through the first part of the checklist.
1. Presents
Everyone loves presents! Who doesn't like it when freebies are dropped right into your lap? And the mystery of cracking open your present for the first time and then discovering that huge box you got was due to the layers and layers of newspaper wrapped around it. Of course, give and you shall receive, but giving seems to be the worst part of it. If you didn't figure this expenditure into your early year budget, you'll be at loss to scrape together a couple of sens to splurge on gifts. On the flipside, if you don't give no gifts, you'd feel really bad and guilty when you receive them. Good or bad, it's a coin-toss.
2. Mad-hour traffic jams
I got lucky this time round. Lydia and I had just fought past the traffic to head into The Curve and lo and behold, a parking spot! God loves happy shoppers. I think. Anyway, where I work (MidValley) it's utterly chaotic with the Christmas sale going on. Just take a stroll down to the carpark and you'll see people who circle for hours looking for a place to park, just so they can spend more time queuing up to pay for presents. This is Good, coz I work here, am early, and don't go through the jam.
3. Re-gifters
Ever opened a Christmas present you received from a Christmas party and thought it looked fishily similar to something you saw someone else receive last Christmas? Yups. Re-gifting is all the rage nowadays. Mostly, my presents go into two piles - re-giftable, and the non-re-giftable. Mostly, things you can re-gift are generics like photo frames, candles, ornaments and paper weights. Mostly, these are the things you give away so other people can re-gift them. There must be a micro-economy of re-gifted gifts circulating around in church right now. Bad: you get stuff you eventually give away anyway.
4. Shopping around not knowing what to buy
Either the presents don't fit the person or it doesn't fit the budget. Either way, you're walking around for hours not knowing what to buy or what to give. Bad.
All in all, this year's Christmas shopping hasn't gone too badly - except I bought absolutely nothing for anybody yet (except to little toys for myself - couldn't resist, had a credit card in hand... do the math). The walking was great, took the opportunity to burn some fat. Spent some precious time with Lydia. Now, what to get people?
