I love Christmas. But there's one part of the annual festivities that I hate, and that's buying Christmas presents. It's not that I resent buying gifts for others, you understand, it's just that I find it bloody difficult. And this is because, every year, I make two fundamental mistakes: i) I never ask other people what they want. I know I should, but I don't. And so I traipse round the shops looking at this and that, over and over again, day after day, wondering which of this year's must-have gifts the important people in my life might just possibly like. But I never quite know, and I never stoop to actually asking them, so I always end up buying something they probably don't want instead. Even if everyone's always too polite to say so when they finally unwrap it. ii) I never buy the first thing I see. Why oh why don't I buy the first thing I see? It would save me hours and hours of time. Instead I waste vast portions of my December in overcrowded retail hell. All this time I'm trying desperately to buy something appropriate, something that will make the recipient think "ooh, that's clever, he's so perfectly summed me up in this single gift". But it never works. I usually end up buying something which says more about me than it does about them. I might as well have bought the first thing I saw because they'd have appreciated it just as much. Or just as little.
But I needn't inflict on others the horror of Christmas shopping on my behalf. So here's a special message to members of my family... Can we please have the same arrangement as last year? I'll buy you presents as normal, but you don't have to buy me anything. Honest, there's still nothing I want. No newly published books, no repackaged compilation albums, no overpriced gadgets, no amusingly ethnic novelty items, not even an Ethiopian goat. Really, I won't mind sitting there on Christmas morning not opening anything, just like I didn't mind last year. You deserve to spend less time in the shops this Christmas. And if you have any idea what you might want, maybe I'll save a bit of time too.
I love Christmas. But there's one part of the annual festivities that I hate, and that's buying Christmas presents. It's not that I resent buying gifts for others, you understand, it's just that I find it bloody difficult. And this is because, every year, I make two fundamental mistakes:
