A Shopper You Love to Hate

I am one of those women who is met with thinly veiled hostility because I am done with my Christmas shopping, and have been for a while.

It helps if you get started Dec. 26 of the previous year and stay on task during the summer months. Christmas shopping requires a sustained effort.

But that isn’t absolutely necessary. You could take my husband’s approach: His Christmas list has one name on it, mine. And he waits until the last possible moment.

(Every year, I weep with anticipated disappointment as the deadline approaches, certain he will be forced to pick up a trinket at the 7-Eleven at 11 p.m. Christmas Eve. The man lives dangerously, but he hasn’t missed a deadline yet.)

To complete your Christmas shopping early, you have to like to shop. And I do. I am the kind of woman who can find something to purchase at a lumber yard--and it will be a bargain too

Don’t try to catch me up in the latest mega-trend. I live on the frontiers of shopping. The result is, people are always getting surprising gifts from me, and--here’s the ticket--they have no idea what I spent.

Bargain-hunting aside, I know the women in my life so well--and I like them so much--that I can tell instantly when I see something one of them will like. My husband says that’s because I only like people like me, and we all like the same kind of stuff.

It is true that, although we hold Christmas at the home of another of my three sisters each year, all the Christmas photos have the same backdrop. “It’s like you all live in the same house. It’s all the same stuff,” he says.

The secret to the familiarity is this: Whenever my sisters and I find something we adore, we buy four. One for everybody. We learned as children that four of everything prevents fights.

But the best part of year-round Christmas shopping is the year-round pleasure. When I see something I like for someone I love, I feel free to buy it, whether it is at a beach shop during the summer or at a craft fair in the fall.

No guilty feelings. No regrets. Just a feeling of accomplishment. It might be May, but another name can be crossed off my list.

There is never any worry about duplication, either. The fact that all my friends and all my sisters have me in common means they will undoubtedly like whatever it is I purchased for any one of them.

I tuck them in my closet where they wait until Christmas. Or until someone’s birthday. Year-round birthday shopping works well too.

So, I am done with my Christmas shopping, except for one last gift. I always save a single purchase for the final days before Christmas. I like to be out among the shoppers, feeling the holiday energy and the last-minute panic. I can relax knowing I have only one gift to find. The one for my husband.

*

Susan Reimer is a writer for the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune company.