'Twas the Saturday before Christmas, and they were really entering into the spirit of things down at Tesco's in Bidston this morning.
I took on the annual Christmas grocery run, while Penny took our dog out in the pouring rain. I thought she had drawn the short straw, till I got there.

Most of it was routine stuff - fifteen minutes to find a parking space, mayhem in the aisles, assaults on the backs of both legs from trolleys, but there was one moment that made me realise just how far away from the true spirit of Christmas some people get in their retail frenzy.
I had bought the usual extra-wide role of kitchen foil - a crucial ingredient for my slavish Christmas morning following of the Delia Smith culinary bible.
You use the foil to make a kind of giant tent in the oven in which your turkey cooks, helping seal in the moisture. I've used this method for years now, and the results are always pretty good.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered, just before getting to the check out, that some kind soul had swiped the roll of foil out of my trolley. Can you believe it?!
It was a pure fluke that I realised it had gone, and I just went and selected another one. They had plenty. You could sort of understand it if they were in scarce supply, although it would still have been a pretty mean trick.
I wonder if the unbelievably selfish customer who did this stopped to think that it could have wrecked the Christmas dinner of a total stranger. With the amount of other stuff in my trolley, I could easily not have noticed it had gone, and only realised it was missing when I started cooking on Tuesday morning.
Sorry if this sounds a bit petty, but it struck me as such a miserable piece of behaviour that I felt I had to get it off my chest. And what's the use of having a blog if you can't use it for a rant now and again!
Anyway, I am sure most of you have been on the front line of the war of attrition that is Christmas shopping over the last few days. Have you come across any similar examples of selfish ignorance? Or come to that any signs of genuine Christian decency amongst all the madness? Let me know...and have a great Christmas.

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