Each year, the madness starts a little earlier.
Around mid-October, I go into the stores ready to cringe at the sight of the first bunting, the first artificial tannenbaum, the first Christmas cracker.
This year, a tree appeared in Costco, next to the glowing plastic jack-o-lantern, the second weekend in October.
If you’re new at this, it could be confusing. Pumpkins are for Christmas? Trees are for Halloween?
But, no, I’m an old pro, so I can tell in a twinkle that Costco’s just eager to start merchandising the most wonderful time of the year, sales-wise. This year the National Retail Federation in the US is predicting Christmas sales of $617 billion, or nearly 20 per cent of the take for the entire year so it’s understandable they’re eager to get going.
It’s also understandable, therefore, that I’ll be ready to drink poison eggnog if I have to keep listening to Nat King Cole roasting his chestnuts on an open fire until December 26, when Christmas mysteriously vanishes.
To be clear, I love Nat King Cole. I even love the Christmas Song. I just don’t want to hear it 617 billion times … everywhere I go.
Christmas Creep, as it’s officially known as, is pretty much out of control, and for that you have to blame a number of factors that have led to the unseemly early start, but online shopping has really upset the balance. Today, for example, is the last day of free shipping at the MEC online store. I haven’t even started thinking about shopping, never mind shipping.
There are a lot of people who think retailers should be made to hang on to their tinsel at least until after Remembrance Day as a sign of respect, but when respect comes up against the bottom line, poinsettias trump poppies.
The competition is just so fierce that retailers are afraid that if they wait, all the real shopping will be done.
We haven’t even reached Black Friday yet. Black Friday is the day after US Thanksgiving and somehow it has become the most important Christmas shopping day of the year, even here in Canada, thanks to US cultural imperialism and the waning influence of the CRTC. Or something like that.
The merger of Thanksgiving and Christmas in the US has led to a weird instant replay effect. You like turkey with all the trimmings? Well, get ready to have it all over again in a few weeks. The only difference is there’s no pumpkin pie for Christmas. We’re done with pumpkins, at least, at the end of November. Would you like a roasted chestnut instead?
Meanwhile, the actual “Meaning of Christmas” is increasingly buried under a mountain of jewelry, luxury automobiles, high-tech gadgets, and genocidal video games. We’re only keeping Christ in Christmas because it’s part of the word. Who wants to go Mass shopping? Bah, humbug!
See, I can’t even complain without sounding like a Christmas cliché.
Pass the eggnog.