How are you doing with your Christmas shopping?  Mine is in the usual state of doneness at this point in the season.  Meaning I buy what I know I want to give early and then keep adding to the stash as other things catch my fancy.  We don’t really do much Christmas shopping and we avoid crowds, even when it isn’t the pandemic.  I am at the stage in life where I would rather spend time with people than get or give more stuff.

Last year we agreed to go in with Jackie to get John the Xbox Series X console – a new gaming system.  Because we couldn’t get it by Christmas, we gave him a coupon.  We still didn’t have it by his birthday in late January.  Now, a year later, the system is still unavailable.  Walmart has it in stock occasionally for $400 more than it should cost.  So far we have passed on that.  Xbox says the shortage is due to the nearly universal problem of getting computer chips.  It appears that the problem will last into 2022 or 2023.

Tom and I have sometimes gone a long way to get a particular gift for someone, and we are following the Xbox supplies in the area.  But ubiquitous online shopping means that the limited supply is available to anyone with a computer.   We may still owe John this present for Christmas 2023!  Assuming he still wants it at that point.

Some gifts have been hard to find this year.  We went to Best Buy recently and they had thousands of televisions in stock at good prices.  But they didn’t have a single iPad 10.2.  This is another item that has been unavailable for months.  We got one for Dad in August, but I haven’t been able to find another one since.  Right now the “in-stock” date is sometime in January.

Computers and game consoles aren’t the only shortages.  US automakers will produce one million fewer cars in 2021 than they did in 2020 due to chip shortages.  There are all kinds of toy shortages, even for toys that don’t have computer chips.  I’ve even had trouble getting basic items at the grocery store.  The Sunbury Krogers was sold out of Rice Krispies and Reeses Peanut Butter Chips!  Inconceivable!  How am I going to make Scotcheroos without Rice Krispies?

Fortunately Christmas is about more than getting a particular present or even making a particular kind of cookie.  We will all learn to cope with these shortages because 1.  What choice do we have? and 2. There is still lots and lots of stuff out there to choose from.  Shortages just means we value more what we can get and what we have.

How about you?  How is your Christmas shopping going?