'TWAS THE WEEK BEFORE…
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
The week before is when it begins to sink in.

It doesn't matter that holiday merchandise began going on the shelves at Halloween or that Black Friday after Thanksgiving, so called as the day when retailers start making a profit - or go in the "black" - for the year, is hyped as the beginning of the shopping season.

It doesn't matter that trees have gone up and been decorated weeks before.

It doesn't matter that the catalogues kept coming or that Christmas cards started arriving a few weeks before.

It doesn't matter that some impulse compelled us to buy a couple of presents many days ago.

It doesn't matter that Christmas music has been finding its way into the recesses of our psyches and, yes, the trees are up on Main Street.

It doesn't matter that someone else in the house has been stacking merchandise in orderly piles, while worrying that everyone gets equal treatment, and busily sending packages to far away places.

We have consciously overlooked the warning signs. Or, we have procrastinated. Or, we have refused to focus. "Christmas? Oh, there is plenty of time to take care of that."

We have ignored the hints, disregarded the clues. Then, something triggers awareness. Maybe, one of the holiday songs on the radio finally gets through. Maybe, it is someone else in the house wrapping packages. Maybe, it is receiving an early present.

Then, suddenly, as the days dwindle down to a precious few, the realization strikes: Christmas is coming at us like a freight train. First we panic and then we resolutely set out to do the things which have been accumulating for months on our mental to-do list, including doing the rest of our shopping, getting ready for a trip to the children and grandchildren for the holiday, or writing three columns which, because of the newspaper's holiday publication schedule, are due momentarily.

Oops, there is a gift that we need to order. We read the fine print in the catalogue, and then the even finer print on a Web site: "Merchandise ordered after December 15 cannot be guaranteed for holiday delivery." Desperation breeds ingenuity. So we search - and we find a website that is probably run out of someone's basement, that guarantees Christmas delivery on orders placed by December 19. We smile smugly to ourselves and go through the order process, laboriously pointing and clicking on the item that looks like what we want - but with no pictures or description and everything written in a funny font, we can not be sure. But, who are we to ask questions at this point in the process?

We find our way to our "shopping cart" and checkout after resisting appeals to buy the 627 other things that people who also bought what we bought bought. Feeling flush with success and with scarcely a second thought, we enter our billing information, our shipping address, our credit card number and our all important email address. (Only later, will we learn, to our everlasting regret, that we forgot to uncheck the box which would opt us out of getting "future offerings of products and services" - which bear no relation to what we ordered but include everything from double-jointed ceiling dusters to Russian pornography.)

Upon completion of the process, we read that we will receive an email confirmation of our purchase. We check that item off our list and move on to organize what we will buy locally. Except, we can't resist looking at our email to see if the confirmation has arrived. We have mail. We feel very good about ourselves. We are looking forward to giving (and watching) the DVD of the third season of "Gray's Anatomy".

We open the confirmation to be sure. Oops! The confirmation says we are getting a used copy of Winston Churchill's "The Story of the Malakand Field Force." We are Winston Churchill fans, but somehow an account of some obscure siege in an obscure war isn't going to cut it as a Christmas present like "Gray's Anatomy" - although the bloodletting is about equal. Besides, who reads books anymore?

The news gets worse. The confirmation bears a legend that the item we had purchased is backordered until February 30. It also notes that the price listed on the Web site was in Euros, not dollars, and that our credit card has been charged the dollar equivalent! Any attempt to renege on the deal was thwarted: under "Cancellation Instructions" everything was written in what appeared to be a Cyrillic alphabet.

It takes an entire day to recover from our foray into cyber shopping, including a few hours looking up exchange rates and recalculating what remains of the budget. We then venture forth, only slightly bloodied and unbowed, to complete the balance of our shopping.

It goes well. We are able to find pretty much what we want. In one store there is a fine stuffed mouse. A bystander suggests that it might make a nice present for Hawkeye. We don't buy it because we are concerned that he would take offense and leave its torn-apart carcass in a window box.

In the process, we do confirm what we already know: we can find no one on the island who carries any season of "Grey's Anatomy." And, in an attempt to shore up our budget, we check both bookstores to see if they would be interested in buying a future on one used copy of "The Story of the Malakand Field Force." The response is not encouraging; both tell us to come back for Daffodil Weekend.

Once home with the packages, we regroup. Now that our shopping is about done, what else do we have to do? We check the mail with trepidation, fearing that some sibling will send along something and we have not returned the favor. We debate whether to send out a "save the date" notice for the holiday card which will go out in the New Year, assuming the grandchildren all agree to have their picture taken. We begin putting things in piles of our own to get ready for our road trip.

There comes a point when we realize we have conquered the week. Despite the pressure brought on by our dilly-dallying, we, somehow, make it through. Everything gets done, even a column or two.

Happy Christmas to All … and to All a Good

Week! I

The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any ideas or comments to drake@nantucketindependent.com.

Correction: Last week's column identified Patty Roggeveen as a selectman who questioned the value of non-binding ballot questions before voting for their inclusion on the April 15, 2008 ballot. Ms. Roggeveen expressed her support for putting such questions on the ballot from the beginning. In addition to Chairman Whitey Willauer, it was selectman Allen Reinhard who expressed his reservations before voting in favor of including the questions on the ballot.