Post-Christmas chaos: The battle for Boxing Day bargains begins

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Just after Christmas Day, when everyone is stuffed with turkey and goodwill, comes Boxing Day — a day where people delve into a Hunger Games-esque setting.

Instead of arenas, there are shopping malls with multiple levels of challenges. And the great prize, you ask? You get to decide whether 40-per-cent-off toasters are worth the 90-minute checkout line. 

One moment, you are sitting in front of twinkling lights in your cozy pajamas and sipping hot chocolate. Next, you’re fighting to break through this comfort bubble and get ready to go shopping. I consider this the first challenge out of many to come.

The second challenge is the parking lot. It is like playing musical chairs with your car, circling around the parking lot endlessly, only to find a spot located exactly three miles from the mall entrance, which, by the way, is a good way of burning those Christmas dinner calories. 

Then, there are people who try to make the best use of public transit. It is smart if you enjoy cramming into a bus stuffed tighter than grandma’s Christmas stuffing you ate last night.  

Once the parking conundrum is sorted and you get inside the mall, a whole other challenge lays ahead. Apart from children destroying the toy aisle, clashing shopping carts, and jamming store flyers in employees’ faces, you will have to endure people fighting over the last product that’s a genuinely good deal. As a person who works in a retail store, I like to call it the “I saw it first!” game.

However, from my personal observations, the deals you might see in stores are nothing but a mere illusion. What really happens is about 70 per cent of the deals you see on Black Friday or Boxing Day are the same deals that go on throughout the year. It’s just that all brands offer them at different times. But when all brands offer them on the same day, it creates an illusion of great deals.  

Moreover, these sales are created and advertised in such a way that you come in for a discounted laptop or microwave and leave with four scented candles, a sweater that might fit your dad, and a newfound sense of buyer’s remorse. At least that’s what always happens to me. This Black Friday, my inner voice kept saying, “Just go home,” but my wallet whispered, “What if that toaster really is life-changing?”

After all these challenges comes the final boss level, also known as the checkout line. It involves standing next to people fighting over the sale price, which they say is $25.99 instead of $29.99. Also, socializing with exhausted cashiers is no joke (you can do your taxes while you wait). However, all that matters is that, just like a character in horror movies moving through a haunted house, there is no turning back. 

At the end of the day, apart from buyers’ remorse, the survivors of the great Boxing Day adventure are left with the satisfaction of saving money on a bunch of products, even though they spent more than what they planned for. But that’s the tradition. You can not put a price on the experience. 

However, I will skip the mall next year and do my Boxing Day shopping online — unless, of course, there is an air fryer for 50 per cent off, which I absolutely don’t need.