Dear LPG,

Even though Christmas 2020 was most probably one that produced a relatively subdued Christmas whichever way we look at it, Christmas present shopping is likely to go through the same processes that it does every year.  If you have not become one of the pensioners that just give the money these days because it is easier, there will be the present ideas that you will have just seen advertised in the paper, on the internet or on the television throughout the year.  Those gadgets that you see and just know will be appreciated by one particular family member or friend, and let’s face it, we all have that moment when we see the item and think, ‘that has got Xxx’s name written all over it’.   For me those moments often happen months before we ever start counting down the shopping days that are left.

But it is at about this time of the year that the friends and family members who have not inspired such thoughts begin to cause a degree of panic in you because there are always a couple of people for whom you just can’t think of anything which will fit the bill. Well that is where my Christmas preparation is up to (if LPG got this in time to post it before Christmas 2020), or was up to a year ago now (if it did not), and if Covid-19 has still not loosened its hold over us by December 2021, I will again be preparing to watch the presents that I give being opened via video phone, or hearing about the effect they have on the people I give them to later.  I think that as Christmas has become more about the presents and less about the acknowledgement of the birthday we are supposed to be celebrating, there is something special about the initial smile of appreciation that happens the instant that the wrapping paper is stripped off. 

If like me, you have reached the ‘Christmas present idea void’ you might be interested in an internet article that I would like to recommend, and I hope that sharing this information might inspire a few fellow readers if there is still time. 

I hope that I am just being a true pessimist but if 2021 offers us a Christmas which is as hard as the 2020 one was; a year when so many of the day’s family gatherings did not take place, the presents are likely to be even more important than ever.

JL, Beckenham

Even though JL left this link last year, it might still have the key to some Christmas present ideas that might just inspire…

(►►►)