Brace yourselves, the holiday season is upon us. This is the time of year when presents, the buying and giving of them, reign supreme. Yes, there is Christmas and all the genuine good intentions and celebrations that go with it, but religious festivals are not what today’s column is about.
No I’m observing the behaviour displayed prominently during the final month of the year. December is at the gate and is baying for credit cards to be whipped out and hard-earned savings to be spent on some purchase or another. In short, December is baying for blood. The kind that folds.
Make the mistake of hitting any decent mall during the weekends leading up to the 25th and it’ll be filled with pandemonium and shopping chaos.
It’s the parents of teens I feel sorry for. An angst-laden and fashion-driven lot for the most part, I have witnessed painfully embarrassing exchanges between kids and parents.
The best example that comes to mind is the time I was in an elevator with a teenager who would have fit in perfectly on a segment of The Biggest Loser Asia, as she ragged on her disheveled, though affluent looking parents. This fine specimen of the Goth-Gone-Wrong movement was having a go at her parents for buying her the wrong coloured iPod. They had gotten her a white one when what she really wanted was a black player. She screeched and screeched to the point where I felt a vein begin to throb just above my left eyebrow and reasoned with myself that an involuntary backhanded smack in the immediate foreseeable future was not a bad idea.
When the elevator doors opened I legged it and swore I would not be reproducing anytime soon. If there was ever a scene guaranteed to promote the cons of family life, I had just witnessed it and it scared me. My friends have since been given permission to thrash me severely if I ever get clucky.
This is not to say that kids are bad. I love babies. I’ll even go so far as to say that some of my best friends are babies. And okay I’ll bite, kids are cute and they’re great to hug. But if only there was a device that could morph an adorable 9 year old straight into a perfectly well-adjusted 21 year old I’d happily become a parent. Just flick out that teenage angst bit and we’re cool.
Sorry, there I go with my tangent. Back to my drivel about presents and the holidays, I was reading a TIME Magazine interview with Joel Waldfogel, author of Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays. And as the chair of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School I think it would be safe to say that this gentleman probably does have a better grasp of economics than you and I combined.
What fascinated me about this interview was that regardless of the Scroogenomics title, Waldfogel was all for gift-giving and present buying – albeit in a manner that would encourage a high level of satisfaction, while being intelligent about money at the same time.
Example : would you spend RM50 on something that you weren’t sure was going to be totally well-received by the recipient? Wouldn’t it be a better idea to give them a gift voucher to allow them to pick out what they wanted rather than to assume? Or would you prefer to donate that money to charity in the name of the person you were gift-hunting for in the first place? Food for thought, I hope.
By this point you may be wondering about my own personal approach to holiday shopping. I usually cringe at the very thought of it; the traffic, the noise, the crowds, the incessantly terrible covers of classic holiday songs blaring over every available speaker in the city.
I hate the blatant commercialisation of this particular time of the year. I regularly fight the urge to sock one of the many dressed-up Santa’s in their padded gut if they so much as “Ho” in my general direction. Yes I have issues.
But here is where I contradict my earlier writing. All this disgruntled muttering and spluttering doesn’t dissuade me from shopping for my loved ones and gifting them with something I hope they’ll like. No it won’t stop me. Not one little bit. I will go through the motions of hunting high and low for gifts, usually driving myself batty in the process.
This is because nothing will make me happier than watching their faces and reactions as they unwrap their presents – and for this to really work, good acting on their part is a necessary kindness. They are aware of this and make the appropriate cooing motions, all the while gushing in a manner befitting my efforts. My ego thanks them in advance.
Yes I will give in thoroughly to the mechanics of the holiday buying frenzy. And a microscopic portion of me always does end up enjoying it, in spite of myself. So much for the Scrooge posturing on my part. I try to think mean thoughts but it never seems to work. Bah humbug, indeed.
Source: www.time.com
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