By now, the Christmas morning gift frenzy is about over, and people might be looking at that truly unusual or even bizarre present that was handed to them and wondering to themselves, “What’s the story behind that?”
This may be that story.
‘Twas the day before Christmas and all through the Chicagoland six-county area, last-minute shopping creatures were not only stirring, but shoving and scrambling to find that last-minute item that, if not exactly the perfect gift, was at least a gift.
“The thrill of the hunt,” explained proud procrastinator Tom Brown, prowling through the aisles of the video section at a Best Buy store in Vernon Hills on Wednesday afternoon, as the last hours of the Christmas shopping season dissolved. “I just do it on the fly. My wife’s done most of it. I just pick up a few odds and ends.”
And if the ends were a bit odd, well, that too is the spirit of Christmas, according to people like Lucius Robinson, a resident of the Washington Heights neighborhood on
Chicago’s South Side, who decided to venture into the sprawling shopping complex at 87th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway on Wednesday.
“You can plan and plan all you want, but at the last minute, you always remember something you forgot to pick up,” said Robinson, as he fingered through volumes at the Moody Bookstore.
“It wouldn’t be Christmas if you weren’t rushing around at the last minute.”
Although procrastination probably was the real reason most people went out into a rainy-sleety-icy-snowy winter day to tussle with crowds of similarly tardy shoppers, there were other reasons why some people were out on the shopping battle lines.
“It drives me nuts,” grumbled Susan Jennings, 30, a Chicago resident who found herself waiting in line at the same Vernon Hills Best Buy store. “I hate these lines, but I didn’t get a wish list from my brothers until two days ago, so it’s their fault, not mine,” she said.
On Chicago’s South Side, Jermaine Jackson, 32, who was conscientious enough to do his shopping early, found himself right in the middle of the last-minute crowds at a Marshall’s store Wednesday, and had nobody to blame but his mother.
He had thought ahead, planned it out and bought his girlfriend a new dress suit for Christmas, many days ago, just to beat the crowds. But Wednesday afternoon, he was in the middle of the fray, talking into his cellular phone, getting fashion advice.
“I usually don’t wait until the last minute, but I never thought of getting the blouse until my mom told me I had to,” said Jackson, a construction worker from the Hyde Park neighborhood. And so it was his mother on the other end of the phone conversation advising him on whether to get a white or an off-white blouse to go with that suit. He took the white one.
“I ain’t never doing this again. There are too many people, everybody’s grabbing the same thing,” he groused.
Another advance planner whose best-laid plans were squelched was Anna Kibort, a Palos Park resident, who two weeks ago special-ordered a two-foot-long toy chest painted with a depiction of Noah’s Ark, a perfect gift for her 18-month-old niece, Daisy. But when she showed up at the Galt Toy Store in the Oak Brook Mall Wednesday afternoon to pick it up, she learned that it hadn’t arrived in time.
“We only came out here to pick things up,” said Kibort, as she left the store lugging out the store’s floor model of the Noah’s Ark toy chest.
Brenda Mitchell, 42, of Chicago was standing at a bus stop at the Oak Brook Mall with her two big Marshall Field’s shopping bags, ready to return home from her shopping trip. It was just a few days ago that her boyfriend told her that what he really wanted for Christmas was a queen-size black and brown comforter, along with matching sheets.
So she dutifully spent the last day before Christmas shopping, buoyed not by visions of sugar plums dancing in her head, but by something else.
“I don’t mind last-minute shopping for him, not if he gives me the ring. I’ve been hounding him for it, so hopefully. . . .” she said, her voice trailing off.
While some people were grabbing into racks and bins hoping they might find something to please, or at least appease, gift recipients, some deadline shoppers left no room for chance.
Like Sam Guerrero, 17, of Westchester, who took his two brothers, Alex, 14, and Mikey, 5, along with him on his Oak Brook shopping adventure Wednesday.
“It’s just easier that way,” he shrugged, as he helped his younger brothers pick out their own Christmas presents, in this case, the new clothes they would wear while visiting their grandparents over the holidays.
Accompanying him on the shopping jaunt was a friend, Melissa Lugo, 14, who became so enthralled with a black-and-white sweater she saw that Guerrero bought it for her, reducing his shopping list by one more.
For some, last minute shopping is dictated more by the flow of funds than the march of time.
“Sometimes you just don’t have the money until the very last minute,” said James Triggs, a Hyde Park pharmacy technician, who was pushing a cart through a crowded Toys R Us store on Chicago’s South Side on Wednesday afternoon. “Then, when you get that paycheck, you want to run out and spend whatever is left after you pay the bills.”
His cart already filled with toys, including a Super Stamper Sticker Set for his 9-year-old daughter and a radio-controlled car for his 7-year-old son, Triggs trudged on, shopping until his energy and money were spent.
While the big suburban shopping malls were seeing traffic jams of rush hour proportions, compounded by weather that turned uglier as the day went
on, some people shunned the crowds to shop for that last perfect present.
“I forgot a few things and remembered there was a nice gift I had seen here a few weeks ago,” said Donna Brown, a Mokena resident who spent the day strolling through The Wood Shed, a little Lockport gift shop and country store. She was one of just a handful of shoppers who casually moved through the unbusy store on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
She carefully inspected and examined the gift selection in the little store while just a few miles away, at the J.C. Penney store in the Orland Square Mall, Elizabeth Haymond of Palos Hills said shoppers were not so discerning at the perfume counter where she works.
“Customers have said, `I don’t care what it is. Just give it to me,’ ” she said.
Alexandra Karras, 31, also eschewed the more traditional shopping areas Wednesday as she made her way through the Salvation Army store at 509 N. Union Ave., doing her last-minute gift buying.
“I came to the Salvation Army because they sell very unique items that make wonderful gifts,” she said. “It’s normally never packed and you can’t beat the prices.”
“I picked up this mail holder for $3.50 for my mother because she always has letters scattered all over the place. I got this $6 candle holder,” she said.
“Not sure how much this potpourri burner costs, but I’m sure it’s just as cheap. I had about six or seven people left to shop for and now I’m about halfway through,” she said.
“Plus,” she said, “shopping at the Salvation Army, especially during the Christmas season, is a good way to give back to the community.”
