For me, Christmas shopping is all about feeling the atmosphere and the excitement of Christmas. Christmas shopping shouldn’t be a chore or a burden, it should be fun and festive. I never understand the people who shop before mid November – they’re missing out on that festive feeling. Really if you shop before December, it’s not Christmas shopping… it’s just… shopping!
To me, for the full effect, the fuzzy warm glow, Christmas shopping should be done when…
…The air is crisp and cold and you need to wear gloves. You have to then take said gloves off to get your purse out and struggle with ten bags of shopping while you try to put the gloves back on your stiff icy fingers – it’s just part of it okay!
…The town’s Christmas lights are up – that bright colourful glow in the darkness ignites a warmth in your heart.
… You can smell the mulled wine / Gluhwein coming from cafes, bars and market stalls. If you’re lucky enough to have a European market in your town, all the smells create a sensual bliss for your nose… sausage, cinnamon, crepes & pretzels, traditional sweets, Pot Pourri wreaths, scented candles, that wonderful smell of pine from Christmas trees…
… The buskers are playing festive songs or carol singers set up camp in front of the shops and even if you don’t feel like singing along, you suddenly notice a skip in your step and a buzz around you.
…Happy children wait noisily and impatiently outside a grotto for their chance to tell Santa Claus all their dreams – For a lot of us, Christmas is all about the children and for the children, it’s all about magic and believing the impossible.
…The queues are long, but for once, we British don’t complain – because the atmosphere is electric and everyone around you is feeling the same excitement.
… And if you’re really lucky… big beautiful flakes of fluffy white snow!
Christmas shopping should entertain your eyes, your ears and your nose; you should feel it in your fingers and in your soul. Go ahead, take it all in.
🙂 xxx
Gosh, I’m so bah-humbuggy about Christmas shopping that I don’t enjoy any of that stuff. I find it all very stressful, and thank the person who invented internet shopping with joy, because it means I can do most of it online. Maybe it’s where I live, but Christmas shopping isn’t a fun experience, it gets crowded, people get very rude and grumpy, it gets claustrophobically busy in some shops, (and last year I saw two women fighting over an item in a shop) and I try and avoid it. I don’t do my shopping before December though, unless it’s something that I have to order or buy or send stuff internationally to family or friends. I do object to the way shops have Christmas stuff in almost as soon as the children go back to school in September, and market Christmas so much way before.
This is my preferred method of Christmas shopping too. Although each year I say I will get more organised the reality is there is nothing quite like doing it in December, stopping for a mulled wine at the German market.
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