Again, it is the Christmas season which brings great joy to many people for many reasons. Some people are into the religious aspect of it, kids like the toys, many adults like the Christmas parties and extra time off and for Santa, he’s happy to get a day away from the freakin’ cold at the North Pole. Plus, he gets to fly all over the world and he doesn’t have to go through a single airport security line and get fondled by a single TSA agent, which he most assuredly would considering his belly bounces like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs. They’ll figure something else has to be in there. And the red suit, the hat, the boots and the beard, please, they’d be strip searching him well into the night preventing a lot of kids from getting presents. I can guarantee you by the time they’d be done with him he would not be such a jolly old elf. And when he left he wouldn’t be “putting a finger aside of his nose.” It would be more like putting his thumb on his nose as he waved goodbye. So we can all be thankful for Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and the whole crew.
There was a very huge thing that I left out about what Christmas can mean to some people. This time of year is what many women get to do what some of them think they were put on this planet for and that is to SHOP.
Christmas shopping is a whole different animal than regular shopping. This is where the pros take over, that is, women. For men who do not like to shop (almost all of us) this is where we would prefer to crawl into the corner laying in a fetal position and not come out until it’s time to open the gifts on Christmas morning. But our necessity level does make us come out on Christmas Eve, look over the leftovers in the stores and tell our spouses, “I looked all over but that’s all they had,” as we hand our spouse a can of unwrapped WD-40.
Women don’t enjoy Christmas so much for the spirit of giving so much as they do for the spirit of BUYING.
Women like Christmas shopping like Charlie Sheen likes to party.
Asking a woman why she likes to shop at Christmas is like asking someone why they like to live.
Women like to shop at Christmas like a democrat likes to tax and spend.
Women are to retail stores at Christmas as Santa Claus is to children.
Just as President Obama never saw a stimulus package he didn’t like, a woman never saw an opportunity to shop that she did not like.
There is no logic to it. It makes no sense to a logical person, (i.e. a man) that’s just the way it is. We have to deal with it.
Now, for some reason my girlfriend seems compelled to defend her and the rest of her gender’s mania of shopping. (Parenthetical phrase for male readers only: We have to be quiet now because you know the women are still going to try and listen in on what I’m telling you here, but we’ll humor them now and see what silliness she comes up. Maybe we men can all get together for a Christmas cup of coffee and laugh at the women’s compulsion to shop. Any day but Christmas Eve, I’ll think I’ll be busy then!)
REBUTTAL
Steve, honey, you just don’t get it.
Gifts.
Specifically, the giving of.
The holidays are not about shopping, they are about giving. (Shopping is just a side benefit!) Most women intuitively understand the complex formulas that go into picking gifts, but it starts even before that, with the lists of who you plan to give gifts to.
Immediate family is a no-brainer--parents, kids, spouses. Of course, with kids, you have to ensure that the total value of gifts to each is within 10% of the others. This prevents accusations of favoritism. Some of the time.
Spouses are a little harder unless you have history to draw from, and even then you need to ensure your history provides the correct prediction. “Last year he gave me that really cheap, cheesy see-thru bathrobe. What was he thinking?? But he saw the expression on my face. Is he going to swing for those emerald earrings this year? If so, does that mean I have to do the Movado watch for him? Or should I just get the bastard a box of chocolates and be done with it?”
(Steve's Note: Damn, it looks like those see-thru pajamas with the "Hot-rod" emblem at a strategic location might not work then. I hope the guy who was selling them out of the trunk of his car is still there so I can return them.)
Then there are the girlfriends. You already know the intimate financial situation of all your closest girls. Don’t want to embarrass your girlfriend by getting her that $300 Burberry cashmere scarf when she gets you a three-bite Godiva mini box. Or, even worse, when you agree to no gifts this year and she still springs for that special little something that she saw on sale that she knew you’d been jonesing for. So you keep reserve gifts in the closet that you can spring out in gifting emergencies.
Then there is the eternal re-gifting issue, like the time when Barb gave that horrid wreath to Frannie, who forgot where it came from and regifted it back to Barb the next year. Their friendship never fully recovered.
So don’t think for one second that the holidays are about shopping. They are about carefully constructed mathematical equations that balance the psycho-politics of your life. Every holiday is a challenge mentally.
And we are not even going to start in on the calculus that begins in January when you assess and try to repair the financial damage of making your holiday gifting exploits create world peace—at least for your own little corner of the universe.
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