See the red and green displays: Just 58 more shopping days

Schools go back: tick. Hallowe’en: tick. Bonfire: tick. And then, wham, it’s straight onto the figgy-pudding-holly-tinsel-O-little-town rollercoaster. Still, the annual ‘I can’t believe they’ve got their decorations up already it’s not yet bloody December’ conversation is a welcome change to discussing how enjoyable/ruined Bonfire is without rookies.

If only we had Thanksgiving, to prevent Christmas from getting off the starting blocks too early. Mind you, Thanksgiving sounds like a nightmare-ish prequel to Chrismas, what with having to eat turkey, watch terrible telly, and hang out with your family, but with no presents to take the edge off.

Why Christmas creeps up on me unawares every year is a mystery - it’s not like there aren’t any announcements – but on the other hand, it does keep it fresh. If I didn’t have my traditional mid-November crisis, triggered by a full-body recoil from the display of mince pies at the entrance to Waitrose, I would hardly feel festive at all. In Cheese Please the other day, the lady told me that many customers have already ordered their Christmas hampers, and put in their Yuletide Stilton orders. Who are these people, and how can I become them? 

I’m not a leave-it-till-Christmas-Eve type, but neither am I brushing my hands together in an ‘all done’ gesture in July. I seem constitutionally unable to get it together till the start of December, by which time the combined forces of telly, shops and other people make me panic. Out of that panic has come a kind of system, which I will share for those of you who haven’t yet sorted your cheese orders.

1. Never throw any scraps of paper away on which you have made lists. (For one thing, the Getty Institute will buy them when you’re famous.)

2. (Relates to 1): Find last year’s list of the people you sent Christmas cards to.
3.  Cross off anyone who has died recently. Now you have your Christmas card list.
4. Buy cards and wrap in the Cards for Good Causes shop.
5. Go to late night shopping with Grange Girl. Write down everything she buys from the list she made in July. Drink free mulled wine while you wait for her to pay.
6. The day after late night shopping, go round the shops – they’ll be a lot quieter now – and buy everything Grange Girl bought. You can work out who gets what at a later date. Get three of everything, because you know more people than she does. (Grangey claims to know just five people.)
7. Ask the lady in Cheese Please what the most popular Christmas order is. Copy it.
8. Go into Harveys or Symposium and order as much booze as you can afford.
9. Use some of the items in 8 to get you through one solid evening of binge-wrapping.
10. All done. You’re welcome. If you want to buy me a thank you present, I’m fond of cheese.

Beth Miller. Published in VivaLewes.com

Raise up cups of Christmas cheer, I just need to catch my breath

How long can you put off the inevitable? It usually takes me most of December to make a list. Then I panic-buy everything from Amazon the day before Christmas Eve, paying six times over the odds for special next-day delivery. It’s a system of sorts, but I can see there are drawbacks.

So this year I tried Late Night Shopping. At first I thought it was marvellous. There was a fine atmosphere, the streets closed to traffic, lots of food stalls and whatnot. But gradually, I realised the reason I kept getting barged into was that other people had annoyingly decided to go shopping too.

This Lewes shopper is used to peace and quiet. I know that commercially speaking, empty-ish stores are a bad thing; but on the other hand, it is rather spiffing to be able to browse freely, then purchase what you want instantly without having to queue. It’s like internet shopping, except you can touch the goods.

Not so on Thursday night. Some places – you know who you are, Bright Ideas – were that mobbed, people just grabbed anything from anywhere, and waited hours to be served in a conga-length line. In this way I bought some extremely odd items very slowly, humming the queuing song all the while, the tune rusty on my lips from disuse. Then Grange Girl appeared, seized me firmly by the elbow and steered me into the street.

‘Late night shopping is not about buying things, you fool’, she chided.

Barcombe Bloke strolled by and said, ‘Harveys Shop has the best ones.’

‘Thanks for the heads up’, Grangey replied, and dragged me down the Cliffe to score mince pies. She explained that the entire point of the evening was to bag edible freebies. She was quite shameless, sticking her head into shops and barking, ‘Any food?’ If they said no, she slammed the door with a clang.

By the time we reached Harvey’s all the pies had been eaten, possibly by the terrifyingly perky Morris dancers outside. So we went back up School Hill, blagging crisps and sherry all the way. We popped into the Needlemakers for a bowl of soup – not free – just as a fashion show was starting. We pretended to be Kate Moss and Anna Wintour sitting in the front row, while some ladies paraded in Needlemaker styles. Though Kate and Anna probably don’t slurp mulligatawny and cram thick slices of buttered bread in their gobs. We lingered longer than we’d intended because there was a male model who looked just like Rupert Everett, and by the time we finally dragged ourselves away, all the shops were shut.

So I still haven’t made much headway with my list. The High Street’s an option again, of course, now everyone else has gone home, but it keeps raining, and the computer is giving me a come-hither look. Lewes or Amazon? I consult my list. I shrug on my coat. I take it off again. I reach for the mouse…

Beth Miller, 8th December 2009. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith