It’s that time of year again, a time that family and friends get together and exchange gifts with one another. This is a tradition which brings me a great amount of anxiety, not because of the Holiday, but for the gifting itself. I’m one of those people who just can’t find the right gift for the ones on my list, others seem able to choose the right gift for everyone, to include those they haven’t seen since the last Christmas get together.
 
I know those who on the Friday following Thanksgiving, are up early enough to close the bars if they had been open, just to go shopping. There are few things in this world that I would get up for that early and shopping is not one of them, that’s unless I needed an organ transplant and the local super store had them on sale.
 
Many of these shoppers would rival a professional athlete in their training regiment preparing for this single day of shopping. This particular kind of person has traits which I only thought a super hero would have like, swiping their credit card just a hair faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than six shopping carts and able to leap several other shoppers to gain a good deal in a single bound.
 
These shoppers approach their targets, department stores, with the stealth and planning of any Special Forces team, trying to gain the high ground on the enemy. They have conducted reconnaissance many months in advance for this day, memorizing the location of every checkout counter and bathroom in the place, as to maximize their efficiency while on target and systematically checking off every name on their list.
 
When it comes to Christmas shopping, I, like Santa have a list of those who have been naughty or nice. The naughty ones are easy to shop for, stopping at one store I can take care of about thirty naughty folks, with a single bag of charcoal and I can cut the switches myself. I do have a little bit of trouble shopping for these folks, what kind of charcoal, regular, easy light or the kind they say contain different types of wood?
 
As for those on the nice list, are a little bit harder to shop for seeing I wait till Christmas Eve to brave the stores and compete with the other procrastinators, like me. These folks typically get one of those “As Seen on TV” items, which can be found at checkout lines of most all super stores. I figure everyone needs a knife that can cut through a brick, blankets with arm holes, towels that can soak up fifty gallons of liquid or a super peeler, shredder, chopper gizmo. There is a drawback to shopping like this; I miss the “If You Call Now” extra stuff you get by shopping late at night, while sitting on the couch watching television.
 
There is that one special person, usually found on the nice list, which I must put more thought and energy into buying a gift(s) for, you guessed it, my wife or better known to me as the war department. When we first talked about marriage, I thought I was getting a good deal, seeing she was born on the 25th of December and would only require a single gift. I could have never been more wrong in all my life with that single thought.
 
The war department made it crystal clear that on Christmas, she would require one gift for her birthday and another for Christmas, and if this was not bad enough, it was decided that we would be married on the 22nd of December. Sure I knock out three of the four big gifting days for a spouse in a single week, but it is also a requirement that the anniversary, birthday and Christmas gifts be wrapped in paper with the proper theme and one gift better not be one of those super peeler, shredder, chopper gizmos.
 
Well, if you open one of those “As Seen on TV” gifts, it could very well be from me or someone practicing that other tradition, re-gifting.