I’ve always agreed to go shopping for Christmas presents with my wife at least one time before Dec. 25 arrives.

Like most men, I would prefer not to go anywhere near a store this time of year or any other time of the year for that matter.

Generally things go badly when my wife drags me along when it’s time to shop for Christmas presents, and I know she really regrets having to listen to me whine the whole time we’re out.

But I’m feel like I’m better than one of my brothers-in-law, who went shopping with his wife at Christmas one time and just starting pulling toys for his grandkids off the shelves and putting them in the cart. His wife promptly dismissed him, and he went to a Colts game. That’s how you do it.

I was really mad at him for awhile, but only because he was smart enough to come up with the idea. I even envied him until my wife later told me he went shopping with his wife one other time and even took the initiative to venture out one day for his own shopping trip. Talk about ruining it for the rest of us.

But the day I decided to go shopping for Christmas this year generally went better than I thought it would. That may have been because my 16-year-old son decided he wanted to go as well. He kind of serves as a buffer between his mom and me. He also tends to behave as well as any 16-year-old can be expected to this close to Christmas.

You don’t have to look very far to see that the economy is bad, but you sure couldn’t tell it from the crowds we encountered at a mall on the south side of Indianapolis that shall remain nameless.

The place was so packed I was afraid once we made it inside the ring of cars circling the parking lot we would never get out of there in time to make my family’s annual Christmas party.

I think there needs to be some ground rules put in place about shopping at Christmas time.

For one thing, I don’t believe any children should be allowed in the toy section. I found myself in a near panicked state after spending about 10 minutes in the toy section of one store.

I found myself in a similar state while visiting the electronics sections in that same store. I could just not believe the number of adults and children crammed into those two departments. It’s easy to see what most people will be getting for Christmas this year.

As always, I managed to survive the day despite a lot of moaning and groaning, but its a good thing Christmas only comes around once a year.