The Christmas Layby. Never Again.

I have always been most organised with my Christmas preparations. I keep an eye out through the year for the perfect gifts for my family and friends. I’ve always finished shopping by September and usually have everything wrapped by October – I buy cards and wrapping in the New Year sales. I keep spreadsheets for shopping and referencing previous gifts.

This hasn’t happened the last few years as I’ve had the two children (instead of one or none!) and last year I even had to send the husband out on Christmas Eve as I had forgotten so many things. The gift wrap did not match and it all made me feel very itchy. I vowed it could never happen again.

Last year started off well. In June, the major stores all had their mid-year sales and offered Christmas lay-bys. I’d never noticed these before but they seemed just the thing for me. Do all your shopping in one go, have six months to pay for it and not have to store everything at home.

So I organised a babysitter and headed off with my marked catalogues. Just like every other person on the planet apparently. The stores were chaotic, the good stuff was sold out (the cynic in me wondered if it ever existed), the staff were rude and frazzled and the lay-by lines were loooong. But I persevered and filled a trolley for November birthdays, stocking fillers and tons of other stuff. And then I waited in line. For a really long time. Luckily, that made my fervour for the Christmas lay-by cool down enough to realise that not everyone I know would really want a Christmas gift from Big W. Let alone from the Big W Mid-Year Sale-a-Thon. So by the time I reached the check-out, my trolley was almost empty.

A few days later, when the trauma wore off, I felt slightly smug that I had at least a portion of my shopping done, and someone else was storing it for me. All I had to do now was make my fortnightly payment. And do the rest (the majority) of my Christmas shopping – but I was a bit in denial about that.

But that was in June. Then in mid-October and I only had $8.00 left to pay. I couldn’t figure out how to stretch that out over 5 more fortnights, so it looked like I would be storing the junk after all. Why junk? Well, in June Ben-10 and Batman were the heroes of the day. By Christmas, they were dead to us. So I essentially had a trolley load of unusable DVDs, pyjamas, underwear and books. And I still had to do the rest of the shopping.

Not sure what this year's plan of attack will be ... am I thinking about this too early?