Sarah's writing journal

One of the best things about writing is the reading. Have I said that before? At the moment, I'm working on a collection of poems about a shopaholic mother (definitely not autobiographical ... well, apart from handbags and everybody knows they're essential). Anyway, moving swiftly on, some of the research I've been doing about the history of shopping is both frightening and funny. From THE URGE TO SPLURGE by Laura Byrne Paquet, I've already discovered the following two facts:

1) 10 percent of the nouns an average 18-month-old US child knows are brand names

2) one in every four UK babies speaks a brand name as their first word.

Actually, that's not funny at all, just frightening. Here's a shopping quote from Sex in the City that does make me laugh because it sums up the characters so well for me: (note, the website above even has its own shop - is there no end?!

Carrie: Honey, if it hurts so much, why are we going shopping?
Samantha: I have a broken toe, not a broken spirit.

And my writing prompt for today is ... the Christmas I didn't shop at all.