8 Terrace Review —— Wednesday, December 4, 1991

grumbling and gritting my teeth. I
just want to get it over with.
But later on, when Harriett’s eyes

crowded aisles, rifling through Te glazing over from the glad

merchandise on overflowing fury of her shopping frenzy, F
shelves, She says it feels "sort of . come home and collapse-on the

My friend Harriett likes Christ-
mas shopping. She claims to
enjoy a lengthy browse along

magical”. sofa with a cup of tea. It’s peace-
Magical? Bah humbug. Hours ful. ’m alone. 1 put my feet up.

of walking through hot, busy Now I can finish my Christmas

stores, with lists inside-my head shopping, and watch "Oprah" at

the same time. How is this poss-
ible? Catalogues. I get millions of
them. I’m a mail-order-catalogue
junkie.

I salivate at the mere sight of a
thick, glossy catalogue in the
mailbox. A new catalogue is a
treasure chest of possibilities.
Clothing, jewelry, toys and books
— I can browse through them all
with the flip of a page. The shiny

and packages under my arm —
that’s not magical, it’s exhaust-
ing. Shopping is hard work. The
only feeling I get from Christmas
shopping involves a headache and
sore feet. I'd just as soon stay
home for the month of December.
While Harriett happily shuffles
through the crowd, uplifted by
the holiday shopping experience,
I’m dragging my feet behind her.

.

IMPROVING Maggie Park |
YOUR ODDS #209-4526 Park Ave.,

AGAINST ‘Terrace, B.C.
aatant,. | CANADAS V8G IVI
rouorion or} #YKILLER. 638-1167

A thoughtful way to remember is with an In
Memoriam gift to the Heart and Stroke Founda-:
tion of B.C. and Yukon. Please mail your donation
to the above address and include the name of the
deceased, your name and address, as well as the
name .and address of the next-of-kin for an.
acknowledgement card. _

your maill

copy of your letter to:
"DEAR SANTA", Terrace Review
4535 Greig Ave., Terrace, B.C.

_ Now that’s magical. —

Hi E i 5 Ki D S ! (Age 10 and under)
‘Are you writing to Santa this year? Let us take a peek at |

Before you send the BIG GUY your letter through the
post office, make a photocopy of it and enter the copy in our
"Dear Santa" contest. The deadline for entries is 5 p.m., Dec. .
43. Selected letters will be printed in the Christmas issue of the
Terrace Review... and your letter might even win a prize!

Drop off the copy of your letter, along with the entry form
below, in the specially-marked mail box at Northern Drugs in
the Skeena Mall, or at the Terrace Review office. Or, mail a

pages hold promise of some
miraculous product made to solve
the world’s problems — or at
least my heavy thigh problem.

And not all of these catalogues
are in the same class. Some cata-
logues are merely product listings
with simple pictures and basic
descriptions, Others are photo-
graphic works of art, with incred-
ible adjective-packed narratives _
describing exotic goods — I try
not to drool on the pages.

You can see why my shopping
experience is better than Har-
riett’s. As an.example, I can
order a sweatshirt from one of
my catalogues, for $32.99 plus a
$3.00 shipping charge. She can

My friend Stephanie loathes
Christmas shopping. Or so she
says. I know from a recent tele-
phone conversation that this is .

‘really just a cover-up. Stephanie is

actually suffering from a strange
malady known as “mail-order-cat-
alogue-nerditis”.

V8G 1M7 |

LETTERS TO SANTA
Contest entry form

NAME —

AGE

TELEPHONE

_| ADDRESS

| SIGNATURE OF PARENT OR GUARDIAN:

_|. SPONSORED BY THE TERRACE

- AND NORTHERN DRUGS

REVIEW

: suspicious credit card. must b

buy the same sweatshirt in a store

for $35.99. Mine’s a "deep-lush
forest" colour, made of "pure,
hearty cotton" fabric, Hers is just
dark green cotton, Mine’s a "gen-
erous, free-fitting design". Hers is
plain old size large. While it.
might appear that there’s little
difference between the two, mine

° feels better.

_ When Harriett buys her crummy
green sweatshirt, she stands and
waits while the paper work is

. completed, After punching inven-
tory numbers, clerk numbers and

ridiculous amounts of tax, the
cashier totals the bill on the com-
puterized till. Now, Harictt's ..

verified, or her cheque. carefully
scrutinized for flaws, and identifi-
cation copied down. If she’s one
of those nearly extinct customers.
using cash, it’s likely the till will

be short of change, and she'll

have to wait ten minutes while

the manager breaks into the vault.
When I order my luxurious

high-quality, deep lush forest

The pitiful victims of this dis-
ease secretly collect mail-order
catalogues of every description, —
and then, behind locked and
barred doors, drool over the con-
tents for hours on end. It’s been
reported that just the sight of a cat-
alogue can send these people into
a frenzy of sobbing and hair
pulling.

Weary postal delivery clerks —
must bear the brunt of this strange
disease because they are saddled
with the sad task of forever lug-
ging mountains of catalogues and
packages of every size and
description to victims’ doors.
Postal clerks have even been
known to nun screaming through
the streets upon learning that a
mail-order-catalogue-nerditis vic-
tim has moved into their delivery
territory (Stephanie freely admits
that she receives millions of cata-
logues).

Stephanie staunchly defends
her choice of Christmas shopping
as being much more efficient and
practical. “Let your fingers do the
shopping and your phone do the
talking” is her motto. Does this
sound Christmasy? Does it inspire
quaint, old-fashioned images of
street carolers and horse-drawn
carriages on snowy country roads?
Does it conjure up angelic visions
of small children holding hands

_ ground a huge candle-lit tree, gaily

singing Jingle Bells? Do you see
Frosty the Snowman anywhere in
this? I think not.

There are hidden hazards to
mail-order shopping. How do we
know those glossy pictures and
snappy descriptions tell all there is
to tell? Can Stephanie really be
sure that the “delicately feminine
victorian-style blouse with just a

_ touch of lace at the throat — as

soft and sensual as a silken whis-
per” won't actually tumnout to be a
shapeless polyester rag with a
doily stapled to the neck?

Doing your shopping personal-
ly in a department store whose
halls are bedecked to the rafters

sweatshirt, I can cither phone the
toll-free number and read my

order into the phone, or fill out
the form at my leisure. The
heavy-duty paperwork is donc.
later, while I polish my nails and
read a magazine: My credit rating
verification and the merchant's
inventory count are completed on
someone else’s time. oo
But the. flexibility of mail-order
shopping is the part I like pest. I

can settle down with my cata- ;
logues, fill.out order forms, make

out cheques, and tick off my lists

at 2:30 am., while wearing
‘my husband's ratty old bathrobe

with the torn-off pockets, and

_ eating Cheez Doodles, if 1 so

choose. Harriett can’t — people
frown at this sort of behaviour
downtown. -

- Harriett has to deal with
parking, crowds, ‘and long lines at
the cash register. My biggest _
problem is the Cheez Doodle:
residue on page 12.

Magical, she says. Bah humbug. .

The magic is in the mail.

with gay decorations solves that
problem. You needn’t rely on
someone else’s description. There
are other pluses as well. As you
leisurely roam the aisles of your
favourite store, happily working
your way through a large array of
attractive gift items sure’ to please
even the most Scrooge-like person
on your list, you bump into old
friends and acquaintances that you
might not otherwise have had the
chance to visit with over the holi-
days. a
There is something magical —
about a crowded department store
in December. The sparkle in the
eyes of small children already
dreaming of sugarplums, the
good-natured impatience of pack-
age-laden parents eager to return
home, the soft, almost dreamy
smile of a lover picking out that
one special gift, nostalgic Christ-
mas carols playing softly in the
background, the tangy scent of
pine trees that seems to be every-
where — you can’t get that from a
catalogue.

It is true that mail-order shop-
ping allows one the flexibility of
doing Christmas shopping in July,
but I consider this to be a very

small plus. It’s hard to capture the

Christmas spirit when it’s a hun-
dred and ten degrees in the shade
and you're covered in mosquito
bites.

While Stephanie spends her
time lying in wait for the exhaust-
ed postal delivery clerk trudging
up the street with an enormous

_ stack of catalogues and packages

strapped to his back, I’m happily
chatting to a friendly sales clerk
who is telling me all about the
time her Aunt Emma accidentally
stuffed the Christmas turkey with
gunpowder and blasted the entire
dinner, including one unfortunate
dinner guest, out into the Twilight
Zone.
And just as I am preparing to
leave the department store, happy
and secure with my purchases, I
imagine Stephanie, wrestling the
poor postal clerk to the ground...

ar