Holidays Already?

A Post inspried by my friend Sarah.

The holidays are right around the corner. Or so we’ve been programmed to think by the retail giants. Not only are the stores being overstocked with toys and gifts for Christmas, but trees and decorations are already in stores and are already on sale. No, not just FOR sale, ON sale.

I think there’s a proverbial injustice here. Don’t we have a few other commercialized holidays before Christmas? Are we just skimming over Halloween (not my favorite anyway, but you gotta love the candy) and Thanksgiving (which has become nothing but a food-stuffing, football-watching day off)?

Aren’t all things Christmas supposed to be on sale after Christmas? Isn’t that the point of After-Christmas sales? People are ritualistic about shopping the day after Christmas, let me tell you. I do not happen to be one of them, but I know many people who take extra days of vacation, move heaven and earth, do whatever necessary in order to go shopping in the early morning on the day after Christmas. I’ll tell you what I’m doing the day after Christmas. Nothing. I wouldn’t fight those crowds and crazy women for all the discounts in the world. If you are one of the day-after-Christmas-shopping people, I apologize. But there has to be a touch of madness in you to voluntarily place yourself in a retail shopping center with thousands upon thousands of bargain-hungry women. And if you have ever seen the viciousness of two women going after the last whatever, you know what I mean. I don’t even return stuff after Christmas – I wait until mid-January.

Maybe retailers have realized that people like me refuse to subject ourselves to the insanity that is post-holiday shopping, therefore are not spending our precious retail dollars at their stores. When you get right down to it, it’s all about the Benjamins.

I called yesterday to make kennel reservations for the dogs over Thanksgiving. In our little town, the first part of October is quite early enough to get a kennel reservation. I was accustomed to having to call on July 1 in order to get in for the holidays – I’m slacking off. I guess living in a less-metropolitan area will do that to you. But that’s yet another holiday expense and hassle.

I hate having to travel for holidays. Why? Because I am an impatient person and everyone else thinks they need to travel for that holiday as well, thus clogging up the roads with their ever-flashing blinkers and refusal to get in the slow lane when they are slower than everyone else. This year, we will be traveling for only one holiday, thankfully, so the odds of keeping my sanity are pretty good – at least in that instance.

I’m just waiting to see who will be the first in our neighborhood to put up their Christmas lights. And the last to take them down. It’s always interesting to see who not only puts them up first, but has them glowing and twinkling first. I’ll let you know.

It won’t be us, that’s for sure.