Christmas Stress

Every Christmas about now I start to get nervous about buying gifts - it's not the money so much that I agonize over, it's what to buy that will be of use to that person. I will not buy just anything to get the job done - it has to have some utility.

In the past I have relied on catalogs to find something that will give me a good selection of items to pick from - I usually don't know exactly what I am looking for when I start so as I thumb through the stack of catalogs that arrive in the mail each day, it isn't surprising that I find some things that I hadn't thought of when I started my search. You can't do that as effectively just walking through a store.

Of course, you have to have some idea what the person that you are buying for likes so you can narrow down the search to just a few categories. I know that I said price isn't that important, or better, price is not my main worry, but it is a definite factor in what the end product will look like. If it wasn't a factor at all, buying gifts for people would be breeze. The sky is the limit.

The stress come in when I can't find anything that I think they would like and be able to use. My brain has a tendency to freeze up when I contemplate what a certain person does in their off hours. It doesn't sound like it should be that difficult a task, but I can't seem to, sort of, reach out mentally, as it were, to try and dissect his personal habits or recreational abilities.

I don't want to buy them something for their work - who cares what they do at work, it's what they do after work that really counts, or it should anyway.

What it boils down to is getting started early enough, in that you can let your brain work on the problem while you do other things. It's not a rare thing that I will have this gift thing percolating in my brain when I am looking for something else in a store when, bang, I spot something that meets the criteria that I have set for that person. It's cool how that works.

The stress also comes in when I waited too long and time is running out. Usually I have waited until the catalogs can't ship because it won't get there in time or they are out of stock. Or the gift that I had to buy is too cheap or just cheap looking - not a good thing for a last minute gift and make the stress even worse.

Bottom line, I don't like buying gifts for other people. It's hard work. I'm not greedy or selfish, at least I don't think so. It should be fun, but because it tells something about who you are, that worries me. Dang - more stress -