Christmas is coming ...

So we enter the last week before Christmas. I would normally now be worrying about having to do all my Christmas shopping. I hate shopping. I don't mean I not very fond of shopping, I mean I really hate it. Many is the year when I have gone out to buy presents for my friends and family, only to return home after many hours of tortured slog with just a couple of DVD's for myself, as was the case in my previous Web Log entry. A quick trip to Ye Booke Shoppe on Christmas Eve has often given the impression that I am uncommonly literate and thoughtful, rather than late and desperate.

All change this years though! Up until now I have always gone to my parent in Hull for Christmas. And very splendid it has been every time. However, my twin sister Pink is married to Stew, the landlord of a Pub in Barnes and he always has to work Christmas day so he is never able to join the rest of the family oop North. As a result Pink alternates with Christmas in Hull one year and then with her Hubby in Barnes the next. So just for a change Ali and I have decided to stay in London and join Pink and Stew. What a chore having to spend all Christmas day in a lovely pub by the River Thames :-)

Whilst this is very cool it did kick up a bit of a logistical problem. We had to take all the presents for the family up to Hull this weekend! So I had less time than ever to do the hated Christmas shopping. Doh! So a couple of weeks ago I decided to see if I could buy all my presents on the Interweb. In order to minimise the number of packages that I would receive and have to sign for (and potentially miss!) I decided to try and get every thing from a single supplier. I chose Amazon.co.uk since they seem to be pretty well thought of. So I spent an enjoyable evening watching a few episodes of Lost whilst surfing cool web sites like Firebox and Iwantoneofthose.com. When I found the stuff that I wanted I searched and ordered it on Amazon. Perhaps a bit unfair to the smaller sites, but in the space of 3 hours I had got every present and everything arrived in two boxes within 4 days. I don't think I'll ever bother with "real" shops again.