When I went shopping yesterday I had a bit of a panic. I began to worry that I had not been paying attention to those Mayan prophecies that the end of the world is nigh. People were scrambling over everything, grabbing this and that, filling the biggest trolleys to the brim and generally acting in a state of total panic as if this was the last shopping day of the year or indeed ever.
Then I realised this is just Christmas shoppers doing what they do every year. Years ago this panic was justified, shops didn’t open over Christmas and stores were much smaller so running out of things was a genuine concern. Trying to find something you had forgotten on Christmas Eve was nearly impossible and back when I had an after school job at Bejam (
remember them?) I saw the crazed look on peoples faces as they searched the store asking everyone who worked there if we had the item they were looking for as if the last person they asked must have been lying when they said no.
But now things have changed dramatically, with the exception of Christmas day everywhere is open throughout Christmas week. If you are lucky enough to live in an area like I do where Asian food stores abound you don’t have to worry at all, hell I can get a mango without a problem on Christmas day!
OK so nobody actually wants to go shopping over the big three days of Christmas, but then nobody really needs the incredible amount of food I see being stuffed into the boots of people cars in every supermarket in the land. You can hear couples in store, one will question a product and the answer is always “just get two, we don’t want to run out”…run out? Just how many people is everyone else having over for Christmas? I mean the amount of food they have would last my Christmas guests about a month so they must have twenty to thirty people over for the day.
Am I really that unpopular?
No I’m sure I’m not, my guess is almost everyone is genetically coded to panic over the Christmas shop. Regardless of what food it is you must have as much of it as physically or economically possible, even if nobody likes it. So I guess that five kilo sack of sprouts is probably a serving for four people, but the vast quantity is there so under no circumstances will they run out.
This is a bit crazy. One of the things that TV chefs hit on at this time of year is leftovers, let’s make something interesting out of this mass of leftovers, let’s make it palatable because nobody likes leftovers. Well why did you massively over buy in the first place? I don’t do a big Sunday roast and afterwards hit the recipe books to work out what to do with a week of leftovers, so why would anyone do this at Christmas?
Alright, alright I’m being a spoilsport. I do know Christmas is a time for overindulgence and a time when we buy things we never normally would. I know we are supposed to show our wealth by having every possible yuletide treat so anyone who comes through the door will be happy. But I do think this could all be done with a little more sensibility and decorum.
I did raise a smile on my shopping trip when I caught a glimpse of a chap by himself in the store dipping in between the crazed Christmas shoppers with a distinctly nonchalant look…my smile got even wider when I realised it was my own reflection.
Have you got any Christmas shopping horror stories? Have you ever been caught out and forgotten a vital Christmas food?
But most importantly whoever and wherever you are, I wish you a very merry Christmas!
