What I (Re)Learned Over Christmas Vacation: Yup, Less Is More

It’s a cliché, but it’s true: less is more. Especially for introverts, who do—and feel—so much better when there’s less going on and fewer choices to make.

Like much of the free world, my wife Adrianne and I had a lot of Christmas shopping to do over the past six weeks or so.

Our kids, other people’s kids; our families, other people’s families; relatives here, relatives there, relatives everywhere.

As usual, we had our work cut out for us this Christmas season.

Amazon and other online options can only get you so far, and we took them as far as they would and could go.

Eventually, though—as it always does—the time came for us to simply suck it up and go shopping.

That’s when our struggles began.

Predictably so, because we should have learned this lesson last year.

And the year before that.

And the year before that.

Here Comes the Drain Again

We visited a few shops in our downtown area first and were able to find one small gift here, another small gift there. It’s not as though we were making no progress at all.

But it was slow going, and a slight edge of fatigue was already starting to set in.

The energy drain and the overstimulation were under way.

So we decided to pursue the natural bright-idea alternative …

We went to the local mall.

I won’t say “big mistake,” because it wasn’t, exactly. Once again we did indeed find a few gifts there.

But we were paying a price for them.

And I’m not talking about the cost of the gifts.

Shockingly, the mall was packed with people, none of whom were aware of the existence of any of the other people there.

The stores were filled to capacity with merchandise, some of it on sale, some of it cleverly not, with signs all around meant to clarify but which only intensified the already crushing feelings of overwhelm my wife and I both felt.

We tried to go eat something at the food court, but we were surrounded by:

a) food court “food”

b) noisy kids and noisy grown-ups, and

c) workers at the various, um, restaurants hawking free samples as though their jobs depended on it.

It only took a bite of some very bad orange chicken to decide that we should once again change course.

So we left the mall and tried the nearby Target store.

And then Michael’s craft store.

And then TJ Maxx.

And then Barnes & Noble.

All not failures, exactly, but basically more of the same: a toxic mix of small but tantalizing gift-buying progress combined with too much stimulation, too many choices, and thus an almost non-existent ability to make actual decisions.

We were at a loss.

And we were hungry.

So, in near desperation and with no better ideas in mind, we went to a nearby Natural Grocers grocery store, where we knew that, at the very least, we could find ourselves something good to eat.

But guess what?

We found much more.

Because we were surrounded by much less.

A Breath of Fresh Air

The Natural Grocers in our town is quiet and spacious and well-lit. It is stocked with all sorts of products, but they are organized by category and spread out so nicely that it’s actually like shopping in a group of much smaller sub-stores.

We have never seen it busy here, and this night was no exception.

So the moment we grabbed a cart and started walking around, Adrianne and I began calming down.

And breathing again.

And becoming re-energized.

When, what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a variety of lovely gift possibilities—right in front of us, right here.

We ended up buying a sizable chunk of our Christmas gifts right then and there in the blissful atmosphere of … Natural Grocers, where our choices were conveniently limited to a manageable number.

And our brains could fully function in relative peace.

And the atmosphere gave us something instead of taking something from us.

It’s True—Less Is More

And what did we learn? Well, in our house we say,

That when introverts go Christmas shopping, less is the way.

Next year will come and we’ll likely forget this,

And we’ll snipe at each other and surely regret this.

Til we come to our senses and remember what’s true:

For introverts, a little—just a 
little—will do.