RM colum December 28 - Shopping Hell

RM column December 28th - Shopping Hell

WELL thank God that’s over for another year, it is mad to think all the preparations, the panic and the running around like a headless chicken are all done and dusted by Christmas Day afternoon.
Like every other year Christmas was an expensive occasion in our house, made all the more so by moving.

I decided early that I was done and I wouldn’t allow myself to fall into the ‘I haven’t done enough’ syndrome that sometimes falls in the couple of days before Christmas. Going into town for last minute shopping is hell between packed out shops, the element of sheer panic in the air and the enormous will power it takes to continue through banging bags and rude shoppers.

If you were to do that a lot in the run-up to Christmas you would just take yourself off to somewhere quiet, away from the madding crowd. There is something quite nauseating about the mad commercialism over Christmas. I know its been said already and I know there is nothing new in my rant but the older I get the more I find it urrgh.

It is not even that I am mad religious but the sight of people nearly knocking me over with their avalanche of shopping without so much as a backward glance leaves me absolutely cold and not to mention annoyed. I am not very good dealing with massive shopping crowds, I just want to run away when forced into the shops.

My ideal shopping moment is to have an idea of what you’d like, run in, get your purchases and get out. Anything more and I am in danger of turning into a mad woman screaming at passers-by. If I do that I think I will take up residence on the island on O’Connell Street where I am more likely to get a patch of space to do my ranting and raving.

I often play the ‘I am walking in a straight line and nothing or no one is going to deviate me from that straight line’ game when walking down Henry or Grafton Street.

The trouble is that even though it is my game, I am dreadful at it.

I started it many years ago when I was a teenager as it seemed to me that I was the only one who was stepping out of people’s way as they thunder past me. So I started the ‘walking in a straight line while shopping’ game.

I regularly get clipped on the shoulder often nearly sending me tumbling over to the side but I persevere with the game in the hope that someday I will become master.

I am no good in the shops at all unlike the Young Wan and Nanny, neither mind traipsing in and out of shops, looking through all the rails, delving into bargain bins, sometimes it is as if we were given the wrong daughters.

Though Nanny and I had a great day yesterday in the sales, I needed a mirror so off we went. We saw an option we liked, I bought it and before long we were sitting in the pub talking about how mad the sales are.

Now that is a perfect day’s shopping for me. Happy New Year everyone.