Christmas preparations

I am on annual leave this week - I had a lot of time owing and thought I would use this week to get all the Christmas shopping done. So yesterday I drove 20 minutes to a local(ish) shopping centre only to find that I had left my debit card in the pocket of the leather jacket I had worn last Friday when we went out to see Alabama 3 in Sheffield (another story and quite a surreal experience). So had to come all the way home to get it, and go back again by which time all the car parking spaces had been filled up and I had to drive around for ages before trying to squeeze into the tiniest gap ever.
Shops depress me. Even more so at Christmas when there are ten times as many people in them. I much prefer to buy things online (especially eBay). Although saying that, I love the shops you get in places like Glastonbury, the non-chainstore-commercial type of shops that are really different and have character. Plus, I love markets. And charity shops.
I wandered around for about 4 hours and managed to buy 3 presents (plus four packs of smoked pollack from Sainsburys which had been reduced).
We all went out to a gig last night. Mike has also been playing in a band called The Silver Darlings and they had a gig in an arts cafe in Mansfield. I got us lost on the way and we nearly ended up in Nottingham, but it was a good gig and there was quite a bit of interest in the band: people asking if they had an album to sell (which they don't, but they have been considering doing some recording).
And this morning I sit here thinking about all the Christmas presents I need to buy and if it might be nicer to just sit here and browse around eBay.....