Today I was Christmas shopping on the internet - so easy, so convenient, so fast. Yet, wonderful and efficient as this new technology makes gift-giving and wish list-making, I decided it lacks something.
I can't pinpoint what that something is, but today, shopping simply didn't have the same magic that shopping in the Sears Wish Book had. Is it a loss of the sensory pleasures? Maybe. Certainly tapping a few keys and clicking a button doesn't have the same feel as turning every page, listening to its crisp crackle and wondering what would be on the pages that followed. I'd fold down the corners of each page that had an item I wanted Santa Claus to bring that year, hoping somehow "Santa" would see it.
Then again, perhaps it's just a sentimental thing. There was such anticipation, even in waiting for the catalogs to arrive - a veritable fantasy world for a child.
Still, as I clicked and ordered today, I felt a thrill, hoping my loved one would like, whether I had chosen it from the paper page of a catalog or the screen of my computer. The anticipation of giving hasn't changed, thank goodness, even if technology has.
Happy shopping, happy giving and happy Christmas!
