It’s Not Too Late: The Procrastinator’s Guide to Last-Minute Christmas Shopping
You waited until the last minute — again. So now you’ve missed every opportunity to “Get it there by the 25th!” You are faced with going to the store with hordes of other grumpy procrastinators. It’ll be a Scrooge Apocalypse out there: Traffic, Christmas music, picked over sale bins, and the smell of desperation. But it’s what you deserve. Right?
Oh, stop beating yourself up. This is an opportunity. Even if you are — at this very moment — giftless, dressed in your finest Christmas sweater, and late for the festivities, you can still pull it out.
And you don’t have to settle for lame gifts, either. In fact, I believe that, if you fully embrace your procrastination as a casual, laid-back choice, you can still be in the running for Giver of Best Gift each of your recipients gets. Procrastination is an art. Maybe it’s time to up your game.
Amazon Gift Card
It does not get any easier than this — or faster. Hit Amazon.com, pick an amount over $25, choose a card, drop in an email address for your recipient, and tell Amazon when to deliver it. Even if you didn’t think about bringing a gift until you the moment you started applying hair pomade for the holiday party, you’ll still give them exactly what they want — because they get to choose it. Got five minutes? Snap a picture of yourself — or, if they’re available, one of your cute tots or pets — to make the e-card more personal. You can send this same card to everyone on your list in less time than it takes to down a pre-party highball. By the time you walk in the door, everyone will be happy to see you.
Etsy Gift Card
You’s planned on picking out a unique piece of jewelry for someone special. You imagined her unwrapping that little handmade something or other that you’d discovered while perusing some hip boutique that only you know about.
Never got around to making that little fantasy reality? Not to worry. You can still get her something artsy and unique — and do it at the 11th hour — by giving an Etsy gift card. She can shop an entire online world of handmade gifts and select exactly the bauble she fancies. You’ll be on time and she’ll get exactly the thing she wishes you’d bought. Score for everyone!
Audible.com
Listening to audio books can be the best kind of multitasking: You can “read” a book at the same time you’re going for your walk or cleaning the house. If someone in your life is finding it hard to find time to read, just give her a few months of Audible. (A three-month membership is $45 and comes with one free book a month.) Or just buy a single book you enjoyed yourself and want to share. If you’re already a member yourself, you can gift books using your own credits. Gifts are sent via email so you can roll out of bed, unprepared, on the 25th and still give a gift that’s both erudite and thoughtful.
Aha
Get this iPhone app from Aha Life and change the way you give gifts. Maybe you think a cozy throw blanket is the best gift ever, but your recipient is wishing for jewelry or something a bit naughtier. Send the blanket (in 60 seconds from your phone), and she can swap it for the thing she really wants before it ships. You’ll never know she did. Don’t know her address? No worries. She can enter that when she is accepting (or swapping) the gift — it’s totally friction-less. Even if you do it from across the room at a party, she will know you thought of her and that a gift she wants is on the way to her.
Zappos.com
Your niece asked for boots, but you never got it together to shop for them, and they aren’t exactly the kind of thing you can pick up at the 7-Eleven on the way over. The solution: Buy her a Zappos gift card, have it delivered via email, and bring a laptop to dinner. You can then shop together. It will be a bonding experience, and she’ll get exactly what she wants. And the shoes will probably be delivered before the stockings are emptied of candy.
