Merry Christmas! Ah, Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year, when upstanding citizens morph into deranged lunatics with permanent road rage which appears not only on the roads but in the isles of the shopping centre and directed towards anyone in customer service ("how can you not have tin foil??"). From about the 21st of December the shopping centres become an absolute nightmare, and them being a nightmare is also the topic of every conversation you will have until Christmas (“I went to Cavendish this morning, complete pandemonium after 11!” “I know, I can’t bear the thought of stepping foot in a shopping centre. I have to go though, I have to brave it! Next year I want to get all my Christmas shopping done well in advanced” And then next year the same scenario will be repeated). But the dear shopping centre, although terrifying, is really one of the most entertaining places to be. People are speed walking around in a flat panic, trolleys laden with unnecessary amounts of wrapping paper, desperate, high-pitched (the stressed voice) phone calls to relatives (“Barbra doesn’t eat meat now, does she?? What on earth do we give her?”), and everyone is clutching onto 40 scraps of paper with the same list scrawled on them. My mom was grocery shopping the other day and ran into a hysterical friend who couldn’t find pears for her salad. When my mom innocently suggested changing the salad, the woman looked at her like she had just dissected a new born, right there in the middle of the shop. “I can’t change the recipe, I need to find pears! Oh god, I need to find pears”. I assume she then melted onto the tiled floor in the fruit isle and wept and wailed as granny smith gazed at her from the shelf, feeling a bit hurt. “We’re almost the same as pears,” they thought, “perhaps pears are shapelier but dammit, we have soul!". Food receives a lot of abuse, I also saw a man literally shouting at some salad leaves while he was picking up packets and then flinging them back onto the shelves. Can a person not get good salad leaves these days??
I am very pleased that I am working in a popular book shop at the moment because I get to witness people at their gift buying finest.
[A woman with a determined fire raging in her eyes marches into the store, she glares at the shelves, daring them to not have what she wants, heaven help them if they give her a hard time.]
Me: Afternoon, ma’am, can I help you?
Woman: Yes, I’m looking for gifts. What’s good here?
Me: Um, well what type of person are you shopping for?
Woman: My husband and brother but just show me anything, I have no idea what they like. Don’t even know if they read but you know what? at this point I don’t have time, I just don’t have time.
Me: Okay, well Stephen Fry’s new book –
Woman: No, he irritates me.
[I take out a knife and stab her. Then move on from that most peculiar opinion]
Me: The Michelle Obama book has been flying off the –
Woman: No, she irritates me too.
[Who is this woman? She then picks up the closest book to her]
Woman [reading the blurb]: “Penelope’s quiet life is suddenly turned upside down when she becomes the prime suspect in a grisly murder... now she much discover who the real murder is… becomes involved... sinister underworld… a mysterious stranger surfaces…” Great, this sounds good. [She then picks up another book and doesn’t even look at it] and this one, this looks good, I’ll take it.
I then had a doddery old lady come in searching for a book for her husband.
Old lady: He likes reading, I think. He likes good books (gee, bizarre). Is this one good?
Me: I haven’t actually read this one but it has been very popular.
Old lady: Is it his latest book?
Me: Yes, it is in our “New Arrivals” section.
Old lady: Oh, so it is his latest?
Me: Yes…
Old lady: Let me just phone my husband to see if he’s read it. [Calls her husband] Hello, dear… yes, I’m at the book store, have you read this book? It is apparently a “number 1 seller” [then to me] is it good? [“well, it is a best seller”] okay… or there is another [reads the blurb], that sounds interesting. The review says “gripping”. [to me] Is this the latest?
Me: We are still looking at “New Arrivals”, yes.
Old lady: Is it good?
Me: Gripping, in fact.
[She then says goodbye to her husband and stares at the two books, looking very distressed – red wire, green wire, red wire, green wire]
Old lady: [after some time] I’ll take this one. It’s his latest, yes? And “gripping”.
I hope the book actually written around the same time as the Torah and very mundane.
The chaos that descends upon my household is essentially a Christmas tradition. Around July, our very organised friend who joins us for Christmas Eve contacts my mom to try and start arranging the event. Every year, my mother vows to be incredibly organised, nothing will be left to the last minute! Every year, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the entire family is up a ladder stringing lights, every inch of the house is swept, including the dogs, food is sliced and diced and then left in the oven that we forget to turn on, half an hour before everyone arrives a frantic message is sent out asking everyone to come half an hour later, people begin arriving while we are still drying our hair or in the shower. From there, the evening is wonderful; it is my favourite night of the year. We don’t have any extended family in Cape Town so we have a group of regular friends that come annually. Each person brings their specialty dish and my mother insists that everyone brings a “funny hat” to wear. She thinks it is exceedingly entertaining. We also play the present swapping (read “stealing”) game, which adds a darker tone to the evening as the underbelly of human greed in uncovered. Present are mercilessly taken from frail old ladies (one of whom is my gran but she is the most ruthless, the other is the granny in the other family, a delightful woman named Betty who wows us all with her ability to recite the alphabet backwards at speed). Cackles rip through the festive air and faces fall. Presents can only be swapped twice. Lord help you if you are the last number, you will end up with the fluffy notepad that no one wants.
This year, my gran was particularly savage. She has grown quite forgetful so my mom has been reminding her that she will be with us on Christmas Eve, just like every year. Yesterday, we called her to let her know what time we will be collecting her.
Mom: We’ll pick you up at 5, Mum, is that alright?
Gran: Tonight? Oh, Helen, I have plans.
Mom: Oh, it’s Christmas Eve.
Gran: Yes, they’re having a dinner here (at her old age home). The Elvis impersonator is coming (the Elvis impersonator is a regular entertainer at the home, he is an absolute hit). Do you mind? It looks rather fun.
So, my Gran ditched our Christmas party for the no doubt infinitely more festive Rock Around the Clock happening at her old age home. I love that woman. Now we all feel self-conscious about how lame our Christmas party is.
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