One for him, one for me, one for her, one for me: Xmas gift buying dilemmas

I’ve lost a few pounds these last 2 months: 14, to be precise. A stone in imperial measurements. I feel MUCH better. Although the last few nights keeping the food intake down has been a real problem. That’s Xmas for you. Anyhoo, so the DH and I need to do some Xmas shopping for the family Kris Kringle and we dash into town in between rehearsals and performance for a Xmas show. We pop into a few stores and of course there are very few people about on a Wednesday night at 5pm in David Jones. Can’t think where they all get to, but in the store they ain’t. This is one of the few times I regret NOT having a store loyalty card, because we may have gone a bit overboard.

I need to buy boy stuff for the brothers-in-law. I’m the shopping lackey on behalf of my youngest son, who knows not a jot about buying stuff for family. He needs to buy a wallet with a coin purse (who knew?) for his 30-something nuncle. Anyway, I’ve decided I’m the shopping QUEEN of hidden sales. I found the most divine wallet for my bro-in-law’s KK, sleek black on the outside, but FUNKY PURPLE on the inside! And a totally cool retro lining! And a coin purse! AND it’s Ted Baker! The price was more than double that of our agreed $50, but I spied a tinge of red on the OTHER SIDE OF THE PRICE TAG. It was 50% reduced! I ROCK!

Then, I call my sister who knows not what to get for her husband and cannot help me one little bit. She says, “he likes Deux Et Machina stuff”. Easy. He gets a funky hipster t-shirt saying “Temple of Enthusiasm” on the back, which describes him perfectly. So this shopping is done within an hour. Not bad. And the lovely staff at David Jones are sooo helpful – which is completely unlike the norm in this type of department store.

But oh dear. What can this be? We’ve stumbled into the Ladies summer fashion section. Oh dear. And I’ve espied something simply divine. A sleeveless cotton frock in stripes of mint, white and navy, gently pleated, with the most divine little waist, narrow white belt and tailored perfectly for me. I HAVE to try it on. DH conspires with me. He is NOT helpful. He pulls out an Australian size 10. That’s a US size 8, I think. I try it on. It fits. Not the it-sort-of-fits-but-it’s-a-bit-tight-round-the-waist, rather it-fits-perfectly-and-I-look-hot-in-it fits. I walk out of the dressing room, DH GLANCES up and says, “yep, you look hot”, then goes back to reading his phone email. “Really?” I squawk. “Yep. Happy Christmas, darling”. Quoth he, glancing briefly over his glasses. “You’d better get it. You look hot”.

Ok. I will. But I’m not entirely sure how we are going to pay for the other Xmas gifts AND the fence AND the tree stump removal at this rate. So it’s one for him and one for me and one for her and one for me: I’m a naughty bunny. But losing those 14 pounds (sounds better than 6.4 kilos) has made a huge difference to my waist line, and it needs to be rewarded. Doesn’t it?

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