I mention the C word.

Go carefully.  You may want to look away from this blog. I am going to talk about a subject that might have you wincing, shouting 'NO!', running away with your head under a blanket or vowing that now and forever more you are going to live up a bare mountain with only a small goat for company.  And, bear in mind, this is coming from a woman who showed you pictures of slugs WITH NO WARNING AT ALL...

Are you ready?

Here it comes...

Those of a sensitive nature - look away now....

I've been Christmas shopping.

I know! I know!  There's x amount of days left (depending on whether you count up until last posting day, last possible delivery day or Christmas Eve), the weather is unseasonably warm and I haven't even had my birthday yet.  But, even so.  With so many family members (and that number is increasing day by day), I need to get a head start on buying things, so as to avoid that last minute panic, where I dash into a shop and sweep things from the shelves with little or no regard for who might receive said gifts and end up with nine spare socks (I know, I can't work it out either) and people outside the family get things like snow shovels and blankets embroidered with the name of NOBODY THEY KNOW.

So, this year - no more.  Controlled, contained panic instead.

This screenshot is for illustrative purposes only and does not mean that anyone is getting anything from any of the indicated sites. Or...maybe they are...?

So, DD1 and I sat ourselves down at the table, armed with laptops, and opened loads of sites, and then spent about an hour staring at one another and saying things like 'Does Blank like Coal Mining? There's a really nice Coal Mining present on Amazon...' (name and present likewise for illustrative purposes only, I don't know anyone called Blank, let alone anyone who might be sufficiently interested in Coal Mining to welcome a thusly themed present, which I am not certain that even Amazon could supply).

Some One Clicking resulted.  Largely motivated, I have to say, by panic.  But I have hopefully, and with my pathetic and meagre budget, managed to choose things that I hope people will like.  And, of course, shopping early enables me to have many more 'panic' days, when I clutch my heart in the middle of a York shopping street, convinced that I have forgotten someone, dash into a shop and do the 'shelf sweep'.

If you get nine, non-matching socks this year, you'll know it was you I forgot.  Sorry.

 

Whoops.  Still, if I have to suffer, so do you.