The Holiday Season

The Holiday Season

 

When in tarnation does this folly really begin? I would say about mid July with the onset of “Back to School” sales. That’s really the primer to get retailers motivated for another season of retailing. Well it’s a joyous occasion for both parents and children. The kids get out of day long day-care and back to their friends. The parents finally have the little buggers out from under foot. That’s certainly cause for celebration. So the retailers go gang-busters in encouraging the season. We are led to believe that EVERYTHING is on sale!

Then of course there’s the labor day weekend. We even get a statutory holiday out of it! That’s when Rona an’ Home Depot an’ Canadian Tire gear up an’ go to town. So it ends up to be a “fix your house up” weekend. After that there’s about a two-day lull before you gotta get Halloween costumes an’ decorations ordered an outfitted. An’ Holy Crap! Almost forgot! You need winter clothes for yourself an’ the kids too!

The food stores an’ specialty shops have their go at you for Thanksgivin’ an’ you stock up on enough food to last through Christmas (if it don’t go bad before). It seems the cheapest thing you can buy throughout the sellin’ season is the poppies for Remembrance Day.

My Missus has spent her whole life in the retail business, sellin’ about everythin’ there is to sell except maybe cement, an’ I can tell you – no, maybe I’d better not – what she thinks about shoppin’ malls, shoppin’ in general an’ the whole commercialization of about everythin’ there is. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she wasn’t alone neither. By the time Christmas finally shows up, these sales people are totally exhausted, an’ for want of a better expression, disgusted with anythin’ associated with Christmas. The expression “Thank you for shopping at . . . . and have a nice day/evening” has an entirely different meaning than the words represent. It might make a Longshoreman blush.

We’d come home on Christmas Eve, close the gate, drive into the garage, run into the house an’ lock the blasted door as a definitive gesture an’ go to bed. The thing is, she knew she had to be at work on Boxing Day to handle all the returns an’ take care of all the Boxing Day sales crap.

So even after all these years of retirement, when she says she hates Christmas, she ain’t kiddin’. An’ it ain’t got nothin’ to do with our Lord an’ Savior neither. He’s alive an’ well in our house, just not in them greasy admen’s minds or in the malls. Bah Humbug to them! As far as she’s concerned, you can take your Christmas an’ stick it where the sun don’t shine. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.