Born On Gifts A Christmas Story
If there is anyone to blame for this Christmas tradition, it's Spiegel's Catalog. Although I never purchased a single thing from them, the name "Spiegel" is synonymous with mail-order.
Each year, in late summer, I get that first catalog that announces Christmas shopping has begun. I carefully, almost lovingly lay it on my green tiled kitchen table, allowing the summer sun to shed its warmth on the confetti-colored conceal. This fortunate, newspaper-thin booklet of "nowhere else to be found" delights becomes the first in a pile of hundreds.
The next day two more arrive. Then three; then four more. I mark the first red triangle in the upper right-hand corner boasting free shipping by a specific engage date. This signals the start of a second, higher priority pile on the kitchen table.
In a mere three weeks, I have a mall. From that point on, the series of shops changes weekly and phase two of my annual tradition begins. Each Saturday I snuggle into my overstuffed couch, armed with my Christmas name list, pens, and a Diet Coke (I catch my caffeine cold, thank you). Completely comfortable with multitasking, I turn on a movie to sight as I shop. The catalogs have been moved from the kitchen to the coffee table. The stack with "free shipping" nestles at my side.
I commence the first one with great anticipation, reflecting upon how far I have come from the recent roots of my annual practice. After nearly a lifetime of research, I have memorized the level of quality of the merchandise offered by each catalog house. I know time-saving techniques, who really ships within 24 hours, and never, ever to earn anything personalized.
This shopping tradition is not for the faint of heart. Cataloging 101 is Item Description Interpretation which is the foundation of all catalog shopping. For example, "No gift wrap" means it's big. "Suitable for framing" is satisfactory to mean any frame they could find was more expensive than the picture. So, when that wall hanging arrives, expect the same dilemma. The phrase, "high quality" is subjective not to be fully trusted. "One size fits all" is simply a bold faced lie. How moral can that really be? It puts the credibility of the entire mail order house into question.
Pet catalogs are tricky. Not only must you know the supplier, but you must also know the pet in inquire of. "Virtually indestructible" is meant to give you a sense of how long it will take before the dog will kill the toy. There is little doubt that it is, indeed, destructible. Pet beds touted as comfortable are based on your pet's preferences rather than yours. Tag does not indicate comfort in the pet bed category. The differences between micro fill, polyfil, poly-cotton, do. In all pet areas, you have to educate yourself in an on-ground store to get baseline knowledge. Then you are pleasurable to catalog shop for animals.
Gadgets that attach time are always intriguing. You will rarely identify these items as gifts for anyone other than yourself. As a result, the temptation to overspend dramatically increases because you'll want them for yourself. Shun these until after February when the items go on sale.
Having obtained my doctorate in cataloging, I continue. Potential gift items get circled in fingernail-polish red. I dog-ear the corner of that page, creating a knife-like edge, and in midnight-black ink write the lucky recipient's name on the motley-covered cover. Rejected catalogs immediately go into the trash in order to avoid a second perusal. I continue scanning, reading, and deciding.
Ordering is the easy portion, made even more convenient since the Internet. I order early having learned the hard way that ordering late results in the item being sold out, or backordered beyond Christmas day. I used to cringe over shipping costs, which is why the "free shipping" vendors become my priority pile. Sometimes it costs less to have everything shipped to me and then I ship it back out. I determine this by calculating the cost of them gift wrapping the item, which is rarely free, against the cost of the reship. I also take into consideration the need for a personal note from me, as opposed to one typed one by Inspector 17. When I first started this tradition, I had everything shipped to me because I lived in the same city with all my friends and family.
This last part is how my son added his twist to catalog holiday shopping. By the time he was six he had figured out catalogs meant presents. Occasionally he joined me flipping through the glossy catalog pages. One sunny day it dawned on him how early I started the process. When it did, he raced into the living room, flew over the coffee table, clearing the stacks of catalogs, and landed with the precision of a gymnast on the couch next to me. He said, "Mom, I want something on all our Christmas tags." That was an odd request. What could a six-year old boy want on a Christmas tag besides his name? Closing the catalog in my lap, I turned to face him as his excitement built. "I want you to put the date on all my presents."
"The date? "
"Yeah, the date they reach in the mail. I want to know when you asked Santa for them and when he dropped them off."
I crushed him with a hug while kissing the top of his head. He calm believed in Santa and somehow had created a working relationship between the North Pole and me! Squirming away, he scrambled off the couch, zoomed around the coffee table, knocking over the catalogs this time, and was off to his next adventure. That moment took no longer than it takes a snowflake to fall to the ground. But it put his personality into the catalog tradition.
At 26, my son still loves the tags. "Wow, you got this way assist in April!" Such exclamations make me nostalgic because it brings back the picture of a freckle-faced boy with ash blonde hair in an oversized flaming-red hockey jersey flying over the catalog stacks. It is for that memory that I will always include "born on" dates on gift tags. And that's what makes this tradition so special to me.
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Filed under Pet Shed by on Dec 6th, 2011. 
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