The tree has been nicely decorated, food prepared, gifts almost wrapped and the kids are restless – it’s a few hours before the Christmas party starts and a few more hours until the man in the red suit drops down the chimney to deliver presents.
So, how do we ‘kill’ the hours until the big moment?
Well, I had prepared the Xmas feast in advance so I did’t have to stress around while trying to calm down three very impatient kids screaming for snacks, Santa and roasted duck. That also left me time to do many other things while we waited.
Due to my dear wife’s childish behaviour when it comes to Xmas presents, I have to leave it to the very last minute to avoid a large scale search and rescue mission. If she senses the smallest present for her in the house, she will not let anything stand in her way to find said present. And, it doesn’t matter that she has three kids who look on in amazement that their mummy is turning into a she-hulk for her presents.
The day before Christmas my youngest (3 year old) and I drove off to get the meat for our Xmas dinner from our local meat collector, and we decided to pick one present for my wife. Not that she would notice, given all roads and shops were pretty packed with Christmas shoppers. It would be a natural delay.
My wife had instructed me not to bring the 3-year old to any mall, as she would get lost.
After being gone from the house for about 27 minutes, the first text message arrived on my cool yellow iPhone 5C, asking me to come home. It was as if the all-seeing eye had spotted me leaving the butcher. In reality, my dearest South-American flower had tracked my movements using ‘Find My iPhone‘ and knew exactly where I was! Is that not a breach of privacy? Not in her book. Drastic measures had to be taken for the security of our daughter.
16 text messages later I returned to the house, only to be greeted by a displeased wife. Honestly, we had not been near any mall, just a small speciality shop that did not entail lingerie or diamonds.
The following day my oldest daughter and I drove off to the nearest mall to get the last few presents, and having only just seen ‘World War Z‘, it was pretty clear that some strange occurrence had happened.
Shortly after having parked and left the car, we were overtaken by a small group of elderly men, all running towards the nearest Sears, and they didn’t care that they knocked over a few kids on their way.
A few more middle aged men came running towards us, with a frantic look in their eyes, which was clearly aimed at Victoria’s Secret shop. A shop that I do not dare enter as my wife will literally maim me – assuming I had drooled over the latest VS model.
Inside Macy’s we were almost crushed by a herd of zombie like men “running” to the perfume counter, grabbing the nearest gift set, while we were opening the heavy glass doors.
These mindless drones were circulating the shopping areas as vultures or Crebain of Dunland scouting the hood for great deals. We men are not great at planning ahead, so we end up leaving everything to the last minute – panicked aimless movements, empty stare, frothy sides of the mouth, tense muscles, less facial expressions than humpty and still no clue as to get our wives.
As we arrived home, the kids fired up the Xbox, my missus laid out the clothes for mass later and I trotted into the kitchen to assume the role of Jamie Oliver, preparing the various dishes so it’ll be easy to heat up later.
All we had to do now was wait for dinner and pressies.