STEVE SMITH -- Family Time

This Christmas season was supposed to be the one to kick back and let

everything fall into place. After all, we were told, this year there is

an extra week between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That’s the last thing you ever want to say to a world-class

procrastinator.

We started out just fine. A few months ago, we made four or five trips

to a store in South Coast Plaza that was closing. The store, a Warner

Brothers outlet, had too many good deals to pass up. Every few days, the

discounts shot up, so Cay and I would run over to buy more stuff. After a

month of deep discounts, we calculated that they were actually paying us

to shop there.

Cay put all that stuff away where the kids couldn’t find it. Moms are

good at that. Somehow, she has managed to put all of that Warner Brothers

stuff in a place where even snoopy kids can’t locate it. And in a stroke

of genius, she hasn’t told me where it is.

Kids get funny about looking for gifts this time of year. You can

almost see the conflict within them. Those old enough to have their

doubts about Santa are torn between the instant gratification of

discovering hidden gifts and the thought that maybe, just maybe, there

really is a Santa and poking around Mom and Dad’s closets may move them

off his “nice” list.

Our kids had a fair amount of their own money this year that they were

able to spend on whatever they pleased. Both got rich by not watching TV

for another year, and Roy had $50 in leftover birthday money.

The first thing they wanted to do when they got their money was buy

presents for friends and relatives. So I drove my son down to a store

where they sold Beanie Babies. There, he picked out one for his sister

and two for himself.

But the real treasure hunting was at Disneyland. Thanks to our annual

passes, we visit the park regularly but rarely with the intent of going

just to shop. So it was frustrating when we discovered that Disneyland

was a good place to shop for gifts. Unfortunately, at the same time we

realized that, it was time to go. We vowed to make it back to shop some

more, but that’s not likely to happen. There’s just too much to do.

It’s that time factor again. The extra week got gobbled up by all of

our other obligations and now we’re running around like chickens without

heads. These days, we can’t seem to have a family meal again and too many

of the pre-Christmas chores are done when we should be sleeping.

Last week, Cay went to South Coast Plaza at 9:30 p.m. I stayed home

with the kids and was sleeping by the time she got back about 11. The

next morning, she told me that the mall was very quiet, something I had

not expected only a few days before the big day.

At one department store, she inquired about a nice chess set she had

seen in a catalog but asked a sales representative in the wrong section.

No problem, she was told, and the sales representative proceeded to go

upstairs to the correct department, grab the chess set and bring it down

for Cay to see.

Yes, that’s really good customer service, but it also makes me think

that perhaps we’re the exceptions, that most people in the country have

already done their Christmas shopping and are at home with their families

where they belong.

Or maybe this is the year we trim our gift lists and scale back our

expectations. There’s more credibility to that than the retail experts

care to admit. In a year when the recession is supposed to be the reason

we are not shopping as much, it could very well be that we’ve been to the

mall in the past, done the running around thing, and we’re just not going

to take it anymore.

So while the airports fill up with families arriving to reunite and

other people are relaxing by the tree, I am still shopping, still trying

to squeeze that extra few minutes out of every day so I can take one more

name off my list.

Maybe I’ll just take a cue from my son and give everyone Beanie

Babies.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.