Last Minute Christmas Chaos

It took a sweet little old lady who barely spoke a word of English to remind me that Christmas isn’t all bad.

Whether you are a Christmas lover or hater it’s an extremely stressful time of year. I am more in the hater camp and resent that I have to spend some of my holiday time in queues. Aucklanders spend enough of their lives waiting around in traffic during the working week. The supermarket and shopping mall become a cesspool of stressed out, strung out people who look likely to snap at a moment’s notice. It is supposed to be a time of giving and generosity, but on Christmas Eve, shopping is my least favourite task imaginable.

I hadn’t left myself much choice however as I tend to operate on a last minute, or not at all, basis and I was on a mission to get shortbread, mascarpone and strawberries. I had to go to three separate stores and line up in three incredibly long queues to buy the items individually, due to stock being depleted by the hoards of last minuters. I was definitely blending in with the haggard people surrounding me. Screaming children were grating my ear drums, and I wanted to yell a tirade of abuse at the person who had left their massive trolley in the middle of the aisle to be considerate, but of course I didn’t and just let the anger bottle up inside.

By the time I reached the green grocer, I was almost certain I had developed an eye twitch, but a simple act of kindness changed my whole outlook on the experience. It was because in all the other stores everyone was so self centred (including myself), wanting to get in and out as fast as possible and sometimes at the expense of others, that this one display of humanity was so touching.

The lady had a full basket of shopping. She looked behind and saw I only had three punnets of strawberries and motioned for me to go ahead.

“Are you sure?” I wanted to make damn certain of this, because I would have been raging if someone cut the line in front of me.

“I lots of time,” she said.

I pay for my strawberries then give the lady my first smile of the day.

“Have a very merry Christmas!”

She laughs, “Happy Christmas!” the shopping attendant stops for a split second out of her busy day and shares a smile with us, and now it is contagious, and everyone seems to be smiling.

It was one of those small moments that make me happy to be a part of this human race. Gratitude pumped through my body, because although it had saved me a mere few minutes, the real thing it gave me was Christmas spirit. I am on holiday – I have the time to wait in a queue, so embrace it, there’s no point in being stressed.

I challenge you to do one act of kindness today if you are out shopping - entertain a child to give mum a couple of moments of respite, give someone the last bottle of Lewis Road Creamery Milk  – you never know how much it’s going to mean to them.