The Christmas season is near

Grace Priddy
Not just another priddy face

If walking through the mall in a T-shirt and shorts surrounded by snowy poinsettia displays doesn't put you in a jolly holiday mood, I don't know what would.

It's been five days since Halloween, and you know what that means - if you haven't finished your Christmas shopping yet, you're falling behind. I myself felt the pressure this weekend and jetted to the local shopping center to make up for lost time.

The first week in November is the reason we all look forward to the holidays, after all. It's all uphill after this, but for one glorious week out of the year, we can share the Christmas spirit without the strain of deadlines.

This is the week we can walk slowly through the store, carefully and meticulously selecting the perfect holly wreath and napkin holders. Of course, it's only November, so we don't actually buy them. We wait until Dec. 15 to toss the battered remains of a clearance rack into our carts before family starts showing up at the house.

But joy of joys, this is truly the beautiful part of the season. It's still weeks until crunch time, so we haven't put any thought into our meaningful Christmas lists yet. Instead, we spend entire afternoons at the mall, wandering around, buying what I like to refer to as "emergency gifts." These are the presents with no specific recipient attached. The ones we leave under the tree in case unexpected visitors appear. The ones we throw in the car with blank gift cards: "Oh, thank you so much! I did get you a little something, but I left it in the car. I'll be right back!"

These qualify as the typical office gift as well. I often wonder how many times the same snowman coffee mug filled with peppermints has passed hands before winding up on my computer desk with a ribbon tied around it. Or how many years it's been around, for that matter. How old are those peppermints, anyway?

But really, we don't care. We don't even mind getting these presents because we all do it. We open the gift and say, "Ooh, that's so adorable!" while we≠re secretly thinking, "Oh, perfect. This will do nicely for the secretary at work."

If I were the Grinch, I'd spend this year collecting all of the ugly Christmas mugs and recycled, candy-filled Christmas tins of the world and pitching them off the side of Mount Crumpitt. There's still decency left in the gift-giving holiday, but we need to thin the herd a bit. And besides, no one is ever eating that fruitcake anyway. Let's put it out of its misery.

The funniest thing I ever encountered was during my years working at Cracker Barrel. I used to watch people come into the store, already carrying generic office gifts with them, and simply pay for the logo-endowed Cracker Barrel gift-wrapping. It's like, "Well, this may be a meaningless piece of junk, but as long as I make it look like a $15 piece of meaningless junk I selected just for my boss at an upscale craft boutique, she'll be thrilled and see how much I care." How sweet.

So ho, ho, ho, Carbondale! This is Grace Priddy, wishing you all a merry Nov. 5 from the bottom of my heart. And don't think I've forgotten any of you in my Christmas shopping. Why, I've spent hours carefully selecting each of your gifts. Now let me just head over to the store and get these thoughtful gifts hand-wrapped for you before we start exchanging presents next month. Come to think of it, I better make a quick stop at the grocery store first, too. These peppermints are starting to look pretty stale.

Not just another priddy face appears every Wednesday. Grace is a senior in architecture. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.

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