By: Steve Wilmot
Edgerton, Ohio
Back in the day, I made yearly treks to the mall for Christmas shopping with my wife, Becki. Let me make one thing clear from the start: I hate shopping. I don’t hate spending time with my wife, but can’t we spend time going to a Bulldog basketball game, or dinner and a movie?
I used to refuse shopping trips with Beck, especially at Christmas. The crowds. The seemingly endless gift list. The anticipation of seeing the checkbook with a negative balance.
But I mellowed over the years. I changed my mind after seeing the burden I left on Beck’s shoulders to do all the shopping alone.
For a few years, we tried to mix grueling bargain shopping with a mini vacation over a two-day getaway the weekend after Thanksgiving. We’ve gone to Indianapolis, Auburn Hills, and the outlet stores in Fremont. Over those two days, we got most of our shopping done.
One year, I let Beck do the Christmas shopping, and we were way behind. She asked me to spend a Saturday at the mall with her to try and finish the rest of the gift-buying. So we went and spent the day.
Got plenty of exercise — walking miles in the parking lot after I finally found a parking space and walking many more miles in the mall carrying close to a ton of packages.
The good news was that we purchased most of the remaining presents, and we met my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson for a late lunch together.
All in all, it was a good day, though not one I wanted to repeat anytime soon. Three Christmases from then would be soon enough.
I took a book along with me, hoping maybe I’d get to take a breather and get a couple of minutes’ reprieve to read. Beck, in her great kindness and mercy, gave me the thumbs up while she headed into another store.
I found some comfortable easy chairs and a couch, gathered our mounds of presents around me, and sat down to relax and read. A guy with headphones and a book sat across from me. Looked like he didn’t mind being at the mall. ‘Course he wasn’t shopping.
Two other men sat around me. We didn’t talk to each other — man code, you know. But it was like we shared a refuge amid the madness. All around us, people rushed here and there to get their shopping done.
Mothers dragging screaming children behind them. Buyers are annoyed by slow walkers in front of them and long lines at the check-out. And bored, dutiful men following their wives, looking at us as if pleading for help.
But not us. For at least a few minutes, we were safe and happy in our refuge. Then suddenly, we were invaded. A woman. She sat down in one of the easy chairs. Wasn’t she supposed to be shopping?
Isn’t that why women come to the mall? She wasn’t going to talk to us, was she? How dare she invade our area of refuge?
Turned out to be a false alarm. Moments after she sat down, she fell asleep. Shopping is hard work even for a woman, I guess.
I recalled hearing about a woman on a Christmas shopping excursion with her two children. After many hours of running down hundreds of aisles and hours of hearing her children ask for every toy they saw on the shelves, she finally called it quits and headed for the elevator.
She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, taste all the festive food and treats, get that perfect gift for everyone on her shopping list, make sure not to miss anyone on her card list, and the pressure to respond to everyone who sent her a card or a gift.
When the elevator doors finally opened, her heart dropped when she saw an already crowded cab. She pushed her way in and dragged her two kids and all her bags of presents.
After the doors closed, she couldn’t take it anymore. She said, “Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up, and shot.”
From the back of the elevator, a calm, quiet voice responded, “Don’t worry, ma’am, we already crucified him.”
As you finish your Christmas shopping and attend family gatherings and Christmas Eve services at your church, don’t forget to keep the One who started the whole Christmas thing at the forefront of your thoughts, deeds, purchases, words, and interactions with those dear to you.
If we all did, think how different our whole world would be. It might even make a shopping trip to the mall better.
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Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.