Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, It’s 90 Degrees Outside!

Why do they do it? Stores everywhere stop selling summer stuff in mid-July and then abruptly begin stocking the shelves with everything Christmassy you can imagine. I go shopping wearing shorts, a tee shirt, sandals and sweat, and all I can see everywhere I look is Christmas. Red and green decorations, red, gold, silver and purple tinsel, boxes of baubles, bells and bows…..It’s Christmas time in the summer. Okay, so that’s not how the old song goes, but you get the idea. I don’t know who thinks up this stuff, but it sure is weird seeing Santas and Reindeer when we should be seeing swimsuits and sun block.

And what happened to Halloween and Thanksgiving? We march straight from Independence Day to Silent Night, without any rest stops in between. Oh, they’ll usually toss some Autumn holiday stuff in there as an afterthought, like around November 30 th , but if you want to keep up to date seasonally speaking, you need to go through your calendar and rip out every month between August and December because apparently we don’t need those anyway.

They don’t stop selling Christmas ornaments until mid-march, and by that time they’re all about 75% off, what’s left of them that is. I managed to pick up a few pretty Christmas boxes last Easter that were shaped like little sparkly cigar boxes. Can’t wait to use them to wrap Christmas gifts. They will fit absolutely nothing that I buy but so what? At least I got a great deal.

By Christmas day the stores are still desperately trying to sell the last of the their stale Halloween candy, which by that time is so hard that the orange and black bags could be used as doorstops, and there are still one or two torn trick or treat costumes hanging in a forlorn corner. The Thanksgiving napkins, table wear and other accessories, all with turkeys painted on them, will be lying in a heap in a huge box that is printed with the misspelling: Thankgiving items: 90% off. They will still be there in November of the next year, but then the sign will read: Thankgiving items: $5.99 ea. I recommend you grab while the sale is hot, even if it is June.

I’ve noticed the opposite end of the spectrum recently while strolling through a local Wallyworld store. They had rows upon rows of summer sandals all in various stages of markdown, which apparently nobody wants to buy. It looked kind of weird, like the older the stuff is, the cheaper its price. At the far end of the aisle, were the fairly new looking $7.50 sandals, then the reasonably presentable $5.00 pairs, then the tacky but clean $4.50 pairs, next came the simply tacky $3.00 shoes, followed by the ugly but not broken $2.00 sandals, which were followed by the broken but not ugly $1.50 pairs. The last bin in the row contained nothing but old, ratty looking, ugly, broken, tacky sandals that cost .50 a pair. Obviously you know I couldn’t resist a shoe sale, so I looked them over.

I couldn’t buy the most expensive pair because there were others that were cheaper. I couldn’t buy the $5.00 ones because they were too plain. I couldn’t buy the $4.50 shoes because they were too tacky. The $3.00 sandals were way too tacky. The ugly shoes I skipped without a second glance and the broken ones taunted me by all being in my size and color. The old, ratty, ugly, broken tacky sandals were ten sizes too big and designed to fit no creature on Earth except perhaps T-Rex or Bigfoot. Naturally I was disappointed, but I tried to look at the bright side. Look at all the money I saved! I’ll probably spend it next January when the new summer fashions come out.