I'm a big fan of Christmas, and always have been. I love the music, the food, the parties, the decor, the traditions. I even sort of like Christmas shopping. Rather, I did, back before babies, when I had nothing in the world but free time. (At least, that's what it seems like in retrospect.)
I'm not a procrastinator, so I usually spread my shopping out over November and December - ducking into shops here and there, doing the mall thing as needed, poking around online. I like to find the "right" gift for each person, and tend to do a lot of hemming and hawing over my selections. But this year, I've been doing my Christmas shopping like a general plotting a military strike. Get in, get the gifts, and get out. Shock and awe! No time for bargain hunting or second-guessing. I'm shopping from the hip this year.
Because here's the thing: I have three basic types of time in my life now. Job time, baby time, and non-baby time. The logical thing would be to go during non-baby time, right? Right. Except that the non-baby time is also prime husband-friends-family-writing-blogging-cleaning-grocery shopping-exercising-showering-sleeping-relaxing (ha!) time. So, choosing to use it for things like Christmas shopping means one or more of the following may occur: bad marriage - neglected friends - estranged parents - unfinished novel - lame blog - dirty house - empty fridge - love handles - dirty hair - fatigue - ulcer.
What about the Internets, you ask? The World Wide Web? Well, yes -- I'm doing some of my holiday shopping online. But even that takes time. And sometimes, frankly, you just need to get out there and look around: see things up close, feel the fabric, kick the tires. Find something unexpected that you wouldn't using a search engine.
I've made two attempts at Christmas shopping with Elsa and Clio in tow. Once, we spent a couple of hours at a mall, armed with Zweiback and pacifiers. I used the Double Snap-N-Go (front to back) which was slightly less cumbersome than the side-to-side stroller would have been, but it's still a bitch to maneuver through racks of clothing. Especially when small babies are reaching out and grabbing at things. (We had a small incident involving a table full of argyle sweaters at Banana Republic. In the girls' defense, I believe they were cashmere.)
In some cases, I used the store clerks as unpaid babysitters. Once they'd shown interest in the girls (who can resist a pair of chubby baby twins!?) and peppered me with the usual questions (fraternal or identical, how old, do they have very different personalities, etc.) I felt safer straying a teeny bit farther from the stroller. But obviously, I couldn't just park them by a rack of V-necks and take off. So thorough, considered shopping was more or less out of the question. One begins to understand the appeal of things like honey baked hams and bath soap gift sets. Fruitcakes. Gift cards.
Our second attempt was on Saturday, when I went out on a walk with the gals and we tried to go into a tiny little artisans' gallery in Porter Square. A fool's errand. I had to back the stroller into an alcove between a shelf of pottery (in retrospect, I can't believe I did this) and a rack of copper-fired...things, then basically climb back out over it into the aisle. I was looking at some silk scarves mere yards away when I heard one of the shop clerks who was cooing over the babies asking somebody -- who wasn't me -- "are they identical or fraternal?" and when the woman said she didn't know, they weren't hers, I sort of sidled back to make it seem like I was there the whole time and said, "Fraternal." Is it bad to leave your babies alone while you browse in the next aisle? I go back and forth, feeling like I'm being a Terrible Mother and then feeling like I'm being paranoid.
In any case, we all started feeling claustrophobic soon enough, and inched our way out of there, out into the parking lot, where -- to our delight -- it was snowing. Outside the grocery store across the way, the Salvation Army guy was ringing his bell, and there were wreaths for sale. We walked home in the snowy dusk past houses ablaze with Christmas lights.
Aw, man. I started this post out intending it to be a rant about what a pain in the ass it is to go Christmas shopping with twin babies, and instead listen to me -- I'm getting all mushy.
Yeah. I guess that pretty much sums it up.
