It's almost here

Here it is, three days before Christmas, and I’ve already finished my shopping. It’s kind of a letdown. I don’t know what to do with myself now. I’m a guy who’s been known to bang on the doors of a K-mart store that just closed on Christmas Eve like Dustin Hoffman at the end of “The Graduate.”

I guess it helped that we’ve sort of eliminated the element of surprise when it comes to gift-giving in my family. I bought gifts for my wife and both children while they were in the store with me. They actually all tried their gifts on before I bought them. Then we came home and wrapped them and put them under the tree, for some reason.

And I know what I’m getting from the kids, too. Allie is giving me a new putter, which I practiced with in the sporting goods store before she “bought” it. I’m pretty sure she used my debit card to pay for it. David went out shopping for me and I got a text that read “What size belt do you wear?” I took that as a pretty good clue.

I don’t mind knowing that the gifts are. It’s better than getting something you don’t want. My dad probably still has unopened boxes of Aqua-Velva and soap-on-a-rope lying around his house somewhere.

I still had to go in a few stores this Christmas season, but I pretty much avoided the mall, except for a couple of brief excursions. I learned long ago that the trick, if you’re married, is to make every trip to the mall so unpleasant and excruciating for your wife that she’ll never ask you to go again. They should write this into the wedding vows – “Do you promise to love, honor, obey, and never try to drag your husband to a shopping mall?”

The people who work in retail stores must go insane in December. Not only from the big crowds and frantic shoppers, but from the incessant Christmas music that every store feels it must play 24 hours a day. I was in one store and “Frosty the Snowman” was playing the whole time, in Spanish. It’s irritating enough in English. Those poor women had to be homicidal by the time they went home from work.

I really don’t care what I get for Christmas. I never could name anything specific when I was asked what I wanted. Though I really could use some nice new pajama pants. Maybe it’s not too late, depending on who’s reading this.