Christmas...sorted

Ha! Take that Santa!

I think, I'm fairly certain that I've done the Christmas present shopping...

Maybe just a few deliveries from Amazon and the like to arrive, but I don't think I need to join the mad throngs in the centre of Essen again before Christmas.

I think I might be done.

I think I've even got a present for the 'hardest man on earth to buy for', - but I can't possibly disclose here what I may or may not have purchased as I can't be sure that he wont read this, seeing as I've given him the link and all, I have to admit that it is unlikely though, as Simon is not a man who reads, well, ok, yes, he reads, but not by choice, not books (although that doesn't stop me buying them for him!) his literary matter of choice is the (whisper it) magazine...cars/gadgets things like that, a complete philistine.

I guess I won't know for sure (whether I have a gift for everyone) until I've wrapped everything and labelled everything - that's when it sometimes becomes frighteningly clear that someone has been forgotten - moral of that story; don't leave the wrapping until Christmas Eve, because then it's far too late to do anything about it!!

As I was doing the last of my shopping today I was struck by the number of shops where the assistant offers to gift wrap it for you, although whether this is einpacken or verpacken I can't remember, one means to wrap something up and one means to wrap something up as a present (don't be surprised that there's a special word for wrapping a present, this is the language that has a word for the giving of a present - geschenken, in case you're interested) Anyway, I took one shop up on their offer of wrapping, as the thing I was buying was big and would use up way too much of my wrapping paper, so why not use theirs (I did have to almost shove my hands in my pockets though as the guy was wrapping the gift, I would have been so much quicker...)
In a bookshop the assistant asked me if I wanted my purchases (books, surprisingly & not a single one for Simon) wrapped, I turned and stared at the long queue, all waiting patiently for the wrapping service and declined...I don't need to save my wrapping paper that badly!

Simon gets off lightly on Christmas present duty, all he is tasked with doing is buying for me (& I give him a pretty comprehensive list) and for his father - twice (he has the misfortune to have been a December baby) and then of course he gets to wrap them - which is...amusing, he got out of it last year, by being in hospital, sick, so my mother took pity on him and offered to wrap the presents for him (he'd managed to do the actual shopping via the internet from his hospital bed, you didn't think he'd been organised and done it early did you?)
I get to buy presents for everyone else, my parents, his sister, his mother, all godchildren and friends as well, my family, our children, him...the list goes on...

But it's done now.

Fertig.

Schluss.


ps: happy birthday Dad!!