The perfect coat, an old piano bought with love: festive shopping can’t be replaced by the click of a mouse

IN Frankenberg’s department store in New York, Therese Belivet sells dolls in the toy section on the seventh floor – all kinds of dolls that are especially popular at Christmas. Dolls with dresses in every colour; dolls that are identical but with a choice of blue eyes, or brown; dolls with real hair; dolls that cry; floppy dolls made from cloth; dolls with as many changes of clothes as Meghan Markle.

Therese Belivet, however, lives in an era long before the appearance of Prince Harry’s bride, for this is 1952 and Therese is one of the two main protagonists in Patricia Highsmith’s ground-breaking novel, Carol.

Satisfaction

The book opens at Christmas time with Frankenberg’s full of people doing Christmas shopping. The sense of activity, the thrill of the purchase, the attention to detail, and the general hustle and bustle simply leap off the pages. And transport you, instantly, to the thrill of Christmas shopping.

It’s a backdrop that rings particularly true for me, my own father having worked in the drapery business in the swankiest department store in my hometown, a shop where I also served my time during school and university holidays.

My place in the great order of things was as junior sales assistant in what would now be deemed the accessories department. Handbags (leather and vinyl – ‘always vinyl,’ emphasised Mona, the tiny terrier of a woman in charge of the department, ‘never, ever say plastic to a customer’), tights and stockings, wallets and scarves – all were my stock in trade back then, with handbags and scarves flying off the shelves in the run-up to Christmas.

It was an incredibly busy time but also a time that brought a great sense of satisfaction – for shop assistant and customer alike. To help someone with a purchase, to see the delight on a customer’s face when they found exactly the right thing for a specific loved one, to wrap it for them, layered in protective tissue paper, and for them to part with their money in the knowledge that they had given this gift their full attention and simply couldn’t have chosen better – that all added to the spirit of Christmas.

For myself, I still wear a long furry coat that my late husband bought for me in Clerys 20 years ago this Christmas.

How did he get it so right, I asked him, as I twirled around in this thing of sumptuous beauty on that Christmas morning? He had thrown himself upon the good graces of the Clerys staff, he told me, identifying one woman who was similar in height and build to me and entreating her to try the coat on. As the other assistants gathered round to ooh and aah as their colleague did her catwalk twirls, my husband knew he’d made the right choice.

And when I opened the parcel on Christmas morning, making my way in through the layers of gold tissue to find my prize, I knew the same. And recognised the care that had gone into choosing my gift.

Just as I put great effort into buying my husband a second-hand piano one other Christmas. I talked to musical friends, found a woman in south Co. Dublin who sold pianos from her own (very large) house, turned up, surveyed what was on offer, tinkled a few ivories myself and made my choice. Then, because the piano couldn’t be delivered until the New Year, I took photographs, got them developed (remember that?) and wrapped them in loads of paper so that they looked like a substantial gift on Christmas morning.

Joy

The joy on Gerry’s face when he looked at those photos was only matched by my joy at having produced such a gift for him.

I’m a strange beast – I hate shopping but I love buying gifts at Christmas. And now, here we are at the end of November and I find myself with nothing to look forward to in that particular gift-buying department.

That’s right – no picking up a scarf in Brown Thomas next week and pondering over its suitability for my mother, no fingering the fabric, examining the colours and the pattern, and checking if the discreet label identifies it as an Irish-designed scarf or not. And no wandering either through Smyths Toys, picking up this and that, and being amazed at how games that were all the rage when my son was a young boy (Hungry Hippos still exists, apparently) are still on the shelves three decades later.

Nor will I be flicking through the Little People, Big Dreams series of books in my local bookshop, deciding whether to buy Marie Curie or Amelia Earhart for one of my grandnieces.

As it happens I have now bought Amelia Earhart for five-year-old Layla and another factual book, Women in Sport, for her older sister, Ruby. But I haven’t seen either of them.

Online

Why not? Because this year I made a mistake. Instead of sticking to my guns and going to the shops to buy for Christmas as I usually do, I have succumbed totally, while under pressure with other things, to online shopping.

And it’s all done. Everything’s bought. I have nothing left to buy. Even this morning, as I write this, another delivery arrived and I opened it praying that the fabric would be as beautiful as described on the website in question. It is, as it happens, but that’s not the point.

For to opt for an online Christmas is, essentially, to opt out of the season that’s in it. I know that now. As parcels arrive and vouchers for this and that drop into my letterbox, I realise that, convenient as it is, this is simply not Christmas.

My presents for my grandnieces in England I won’t even see – the books and other toys that I ordered for them online have already been delivered directly to the girls’ parents.

I did, however, actually buy one thing in a shop last Saturday when, having a quick look in the Disney Store, I spotted something that I thought my own son would like for his little godson. A talking Spider-Man. So I rang my son to check if he’d like me to get it for him.

Before I did that, however, I began pressing all sorts of buttons on the Spider-Man – lights flashed, and a monotone voice issued instructions. I did it over and over again, smiling to myself at the thought of little Max pushing the same buttons on Christmas morning.

Then I phoned my son. ‘Great idea,’ he said. ‘Good,’ I told him, ‘because I need to get out of this shop. It’s doing my head in.’

‘Really?’ he replied. ‘It sounds to me like you’re having fun.’

And I thought about that later as I drove home. Fun. Yes, I did have fun buying that Spider-Man.

And that’s exactly what’s missing when you log in, scroll down, add to your basket, and cough up your debit card details.

Online shopping is taking the fun out of Christmas. And next year, it’s back to the shops for me.