9 sleeps to go - It's virtually Christmas...

It’s virtually Christmas and I mean that quite literally. Things have moved on in the world of present buying, it seems that Father Christmas may soon be on the ‘at risk’ list. No Christmas card for him maybe; just his cards.

Every year my wife would buy me the latest Stephen King. She’d go to the bookshop, wrap it up, place it carefully under the tree and it would sit there waiting patiently for Christmas morning to arrive. I always knew what it was long before I opened it. Well a book looks like a book and feels like a book doesn’t it?

Perhaps not these days.

A couple of years ago I moved from paper to Kindle. It’s great. I can have any book when I want it, sometimes for a fraction of the cost I’d have paid for paper, and it’s so easy and portable.  This year my wife asked if there was a book I wanted for Christmas. Well, obviously there was; there’s always a book that I want, so she said that she’d get it and I said that there was no need. I’d download it to my Kindle on Christmas morning – simples!

“So what do I wrap?” She asked.

Good question. The best that I could come up with was that she downloaded it for me and then… well, then nothing really.

Yes, all this interwebbing has made Christmas almost a present free zone. No more records or CD’s, no more books or vouchers. It's all downloads, online gift vouchers, presents ordered online and delivered to your door pre-wrapped and gift tagged… I begin to wonder what’s next. Of course the upside is the convenience - and we must be saving hundreds of forests in wrapping paper. But somehow losing the anticipation of opening that parcel under the tree is just that – a loss.

With 3D printers on the up I really do wonder what is next - print your own virtual socks maybe?