Guest post by Dr Rebekka Kill
I have a confession to make. Aaargh, the guilt. *takes a deep breath*
Last year, I did nearly all my Christmas shopping on the internet. There, I’ve said it. I come from a household we talk the talk about buying local, about supporting local designers and food producers, and yet, I failed. I’m a failure, a fraud, and I feel bad about it. But, life’s so busy. What with jobs, and friends, and kids, and major DIY projects, and it’s much more time efficient to buy online, and I used less petrol driving to the shops, so it’s environmentally friendly, urm, ahem … it’s no good, there’s no excuse. I just need to move on, to try harder this time; to do better this year.
Last Saturday afternoon I made some time to go shopping in Leeds. It was a busy weekend for me (no change there) and so I drove into town and decided to pay a crazy amount for in the multi-storey near the market. I had my fourteen year old daughter with me and, in the car, we decided that we couldn’t afford to go over two hours shopping time as it’d take our parking bill over a tenner! But, we agreed that we definitely needed to fit in tea and cake. We were on a mission. Tea and cake and a reasonable number of Christmas presents in two hours. On your marks…
The main reason we went to the market end of town was that I had decided to go to the Corn Exchange as there was a new shop called the Juju Shop that I wanted to check out and also the Made in Leeds shop (upstairs) plus I wanted to go to Bird’s Yard. I knew we could get some great gifts there and, more importantly, both places have tea and cake.
So, we started with the Corn Exchange. As soon as we walked in I knew I was in luck. I hadn’t realised but it was the Reetsweet Craft Fair. I went into a buying frenzy. Tiny knitted Christmas puddings with Ferrero Rocher inside, a glasses case made from up-cycled fabric, handmade journals, a pair of earrings made from tiny slivers of colouring pencils, a foxes head felt brooch… .I’m doing brilliantly; haven’t even gone into any shops yet. My daughter looked at me, puzzled, “Who are these for?” she asked. Shit, she’s got a point, I need to calm down. I’m not even sure what I’ve bought. I’ve gone a bit mental.
We double checked and we hadn’t actually spent much money but the glasses case, the knitted Christmas puddings and the miniature fabric bunting was for us. Time was ticking and we actually needed to buy some presents. The JuJu shop, Made in Leeds shop and the ReetSweet stalls were all brilliant and once I’d calmed down a bit we managed to get four people sorted. We worked out a strategy, which was that I would mutter a family member’s name mantra-like under my breath like a crazy lady, “Auntie Cassie, Auntie Cassie, Auntie Cassie”, and my daughter would point out suitable gifts while trying not to get embarrassed by my odd behaviour.
We were an hour in to our time and we’d done well; time for tea and cake. My daughter and I shared a huge vintage teapot full of steaming earl grey tea and a giant slice of Victoria sponge (with real strawberries and red edible glitter on) at the Marvellous Tearooms on the ground floor at Bird’s Yard. We had a good look round and ended up in the Life’s Big Canvas shop on the first floor. I began to mumble again, “Uncle Liam, Auntie Jane, little Granny”. We got another two presents in the end; one of which was particularly brilliant. Having decided to buy a pendant necklace with dictionary definitions in, we spent ages trying to find something that would be appropriate to the person we were buying for. In the end Chloe, the owner of Life’s Big Canvas, intervened. “ I’ve got a dictionary of names, would you like me to make one for you? I can have it ready for Tuesday.” So, we got a specially commissioned, handmade unique, necklace. Amazing.
At that point we ran out of time and dashed back to the car. We had sorted out beautiful, unique presents for six of my family members and all were bought from local artists and designers. That evening, spurred on by the day’s progress, I bought a few things online. Except this time, I didn’t feel guilty. I don’t have the time to shop local for absolutely everything. I had gone from failing to shop locally altogether to getting loads. If I was grading myself on my efforts I’d gone from an F to a C+. Nobody’s perfect, but I’ve already done better than last year…