Of Christmas Shopping trips...

I took off to the city yesterday for a bit of early Christmas shopping. Although I buy 80% of my gifts at home, Christmas shopping for me is never quite complete without a trip to a mall somewhere - the Christmas music, decorations, hustle & bustle - it's a pre-Christmas treat for me. This early in November, with a pretty short list of errands in hand, the trip should have been a relaxed excursion. But evidently, I'm not the only person who sees the value in taking off Nov 10 to create a "long weekend", and most of these like-minded people were at MicMac Mall yesterday!

So as I wandered through the crowded mall, or stood in a long line at Toys'R Us, I thought again of the advantages of shopping at home. The quiet. The atmosphere. The lack of lineups at the cash. The great gift selection in all the various stores. The Season Passes, or Theatre tickets, as a useful and unique gift. Shopping among friends - as they say on Cheers, "where everybody knows your name"...

Of course, the reality is that there are things (like Toys) that do require a trip to a larger centre, and shopping hours are pretty limited in any downtown core compared to a mall. But for the most part, the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks, and supporting our own local economies to the extent possible is pretty important. So I will continue to consider Annapolis Royal my primary shopping destination, with a sidetrip to a mall each year just for fun. And next year, I'll try to be more strategic in picking a day to "relax" at MicMac Mall!