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Do men like to Christmas shop? Maybe…
I suspect it’s not something they look forward to with the same
excitement that women do. It’s my guess that men aren’t wired to
like shopping, preferring to leave shopping to the women in their
lives. When Christmas looms on the horizon, and the days grow
shorter, a man’s shopping style, with a few exceptions, falls into
three basic categories.
First, there’s the navy seal approach
where the man wants to know down to the last detail exactly what gift
to buy his wife or girlfriend. He’s very good at ferreting out the
information he needs about gift type, color choices and overall
availability of the gift he’s chosen to search for. Armed with this
information he enters the store just as the staff are putting up the
Christmas displays because he doesn’t want to wait if it means
taking any risk in finding the perfect gift. He does a quick
reconnaissance of the store directory for the right department before
searching for the escalator. Once in the department, he scans the
merchandise for the right size and description and makes the
purchase, before using his stealth techniques to escape back to his
man cave. Mission accomplished.
The second male shopping style is the guy who plays it cool when his wife or girlfriend hints around about a Christmas gift, safe in the knowledge that his sister will help him out. Of course cool man knows there’s a price for gaining his sister’s help in selecting the perfect gift, but he is okay with that. When he enters the store, he takes a detour over to the tools and home hardware department—he’s scouting out his own Christmas gift—before meeting his sister at the appointed section of the store, often more than a little late. Once his sister gives the nod of approval on the potential purchase, he gets the store to wrap the gift. Over a plate of seafood linguine his sister agrees to hide the gift at her house until the day before Christmas.
The third Christmas male shopping style is the ‘it-can’t-be-Christmas-yet-can-it?’ shopper. He’s also known as Mr. Frantic. Happily unaware of life around him, immersed in his job all day and his video games all evening, he has the perfectly timed comment whenever anyone in the house makes reference to Christmas: “Can’t wait for Uncle Martin’s bourbon sauce on the mince pie.” Mr. Frantic is the one you see tearing around the stores on Christmas Eve, his jacket flapping, his hair askew, his eyes glazed with anxiety as he races from one department to another looking for a gift, any gift that the woman in his life would like. When an exhausted sales clerk offers to help him make a purchase, he is pathetically grateful. This lady is a professional at her job, which at the moment means managing late shoppers. She helps him choose a gift then offers to wrap it for him. With words of appreciation on his lips and reassured that he has the gift return slip or sales slip jammed into his wallet, he makes a break for the door and the parking lot.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Do you have your category of choice for the male shoppers in your life?
Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you enjoy shopping on Black Friday.
Stella
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