christmas fear

Just reading about Govstooges' pre-christmas panic (http://govstooge.blogspot.com/) is enough to put the fear of God into you about the Christmas shopping. I know it's irrational, but I hate people who have their Christmas shopping done by the time the kids go back to school. What the fuck kind of lives do these people lead? I seceretely (well, not secretely any more now) hope that all their presents suddenly become useless through sudden onset allergies, baldness, impotence or legal proceedings. The only people more deserving of our sympathy than last minute shoppers are the poor shop assistants who have to try to assist, talk down, and suffer the moods of us panickers. I spent a decade or so in retail management in the nineties and the re is nothing quite like the dread of waking up on Christmas Eve morning, knowing that you would be dealing with a lethal cocktail of panicking punters, hungover staff wearing santa hats, bosses phoning on the half-hour looking for up to date figures, drunk punters, thieves, pickpockets, staff wondering can they leave early to get a bus to Donegal/Roscommon/London, staff not wanting to work in the same area as the staff member they shifted at the drunken staff party three days before, lost children, lost parents, lost grannies and the knowledge that you had to come in on Stephen's day to organize the displays for the sales.
Ho Ho Ho indeed!