The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, December 25

Hello, Hoddlers!

I hope you’re all enjoying your day, whether you’re celebrating Christmas or not. I also hope I’m enjoying it, because I’m writing this about six hours before the day begins for me and have no way of seeing the future.

Ramble of the Day

Perhaps it’s not good-spirited of me, but as someone who regularly gets her Christmas shopping done with a few days to spare, the final few days before the holiday are endlessly intriguing to me. There’s a certain idea of chaos and panic that just seems so entertaining, and so my sisters and I just had to go see if a shopping mall on Christmas Eve lived up to the billing. Here’s what we saw and heard, in bullet point form:

• There was a man outside of Walmart trying to sell us a bracelet. (It didn’t work.)
• The toy section at said Walmart looked like this:

• There was a lone roller skate and opened up packages at the Walmart.
• There were Netherlands, Slovakia, and South Africa jerseys at Burlington for $40! (I should buy one when the Christmas rush is over.)
• There were people trying to buy an 82 inch television at Best Buy, and they may have indicated that it wasn’t big enough.
• Overheard at Best Buy: “If I have to stay here any longer, I’m going to have a heart attack.”
• The jewelry and purse departments at Macy’s were very busy.
• The Starbucks lines to order and pick up were just as long as you’d think.
• The Bath and Body Works shelves were visibly empty from a distance.
• The gift wrapping line was so long at the mall that a security guard had to watch over.

I was plenty entertained by the sense of urgency the shoppers evidently had. There was no wildness attached to it, but the atmosphere was lively, if almost hectic, and naturally engaging for onlookers. I am pretty damn happy that I didn’t actually have to buy anything today, though.

tl;dr: I went to a mall on Christmas Eve just for the entertainment value.

Links of the Day

Celtic Women will become a full time professional team, making it the first in Scottish women’s football.

Celtic’s men’s side has signed 15-year-old Karamoko Dembélé to a first team contract.

Arsenal’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan will miss up to six weeks after fracturing his metatarsal.

David Squires’s latest cartoon puts a Christmas spin on José Mourinho’s recent firing by Manchester United.

Today’s longer read: Noah Davis interviews Zack Steffen after a banner year that saw him earn his first national team matches and a transfer to Manchester City for ESPN