Friday, September 30, 2005

Christmas Time

It astounds me how early the retail industry begins advertising/decorating/selling Christmas. As one who does not "shop" very often [and who avoids the Garden Center at Wal-mart during the off season…..heck, I try to avoid Wal-mart all together when at all possible…], the Commercial Christmas Season seems to get earlier and earlier each year.


As I walked through my local Hobby Lobby store yesterday in search of pretty paper and liquid gold leaf, I experienced mild mouth-opening shock as I was visually assaulted by aisles of Winter Wonderland and Holiday Cheer. I am not talking one or two Pre-Season aisles. One or two aisles would have been easily reconciled in my mind. No. I am speaking of aisle after aisle after aisle of Christmas greeting me, each aisle filled from floor to shelf top with neatly displayed greenery, wreaths, ribbons [I think there was a whole aisle full of that], ornaments, Santas, and all the other cutesy whatnot that is commercially associated with Christmas. I almost stopped in my tracks over the sheer volume of items. Here I am, in sandals and a short-sleeved shirt, and they are trying to get me in the Christmas Spirit. Now, I like Christmas as much as anyone, but give me a break! HELLO! It is not even OCTOBER yet [that's tomorrow :)]. Can’t we get through Halloween first? What about Thanksgiving? Must we time warp to Christmas already? Granted, there were probably a few aisles dedicated to those two Commercially Friendly Holidays as well, but I didn’t notice them due to the fact that they were dwarfed by the floor to ceiling Christmas displays along the back wall.

Well, I guess there are only 84 shopping days left. Wow, that isn’t much time. We really should all get started!! Merry Christmas to all and to all Happy Shopping…. :P


Wake-up call world: Christmas is not about shopping. It is not about decorating. It is not about Santa. Its not about Wal-mart. It is about Jesus Christ. His Birthday. To celebrate HIM. To worship Him. Yeah, sure, with family and friends. Yeah, sure, with lots of cheer and good times. Yeah sure, with a day or two off from work. Yeah sure, with special gifts. But always with the Reason in mind. Ok, go back to sleep now….

4 Sagacious Sayings:

At 9/30/2005 3:00 PM, Blogger Jill Chuckled and said...

As one who is being led to "Think Like A Retailer" and as a friend to an organized shopping nazi, I assure you that retailers would miss out on Christmas sales if they didn't get their stuff out in October (or in some cases, September). My nazi friend has already gotten about 3/4 of her shopping done for Christmas!! Geez! But isn't Christmas such a joyful time that we want to extend it as much as possible? It's a thought, anyway. :)

 
At 9/30/2005 3:12 PM, Blogger sarah j. Chuckled and said...

yes, but if everyone just waited later to start selling, then no one would miss out on sales....right? ;) The way it stands now: Store A lost a bunch of sales to Store B last year, so this year Store A has decided to start selling earlier. Next year, Store B will try to "one up" store A because of their lost sales this year, and so on and so forth until in 2010 one or both Stores will begin their Christmas Season sales in April. Or something... haha.

I don't think the shopping part of Christmas is a joyful time. At least, it never is in the movies, haha!! ;)

 
At 9/30/2005 5:37 PM, Blogger Shelli Chuckled and said...

I don't have a real "problem" with the early Christmas stuff...it just makes me really stressed out to think about shopping. YUCK!

 
At 10/02/2005 8:28 AM, Blogger Geek4god Chuckled and said...

. . . for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

 

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