I'm a holiday Scrooge, evidentally

This past weekend my daughter Gila and I were on a shopping trip to a local crafts and fabric store here in Boston. This store is part of a national chain and carries a lot of themed holiday craft items. We expected to see Christmas decorations way marked down, and yes, there were plenty. We also expected to see Valentines Day decorations and there were plenty of those. Such adorable items, too. I was enamored by the totally cute Chinese Take-out boxes with hearts all over them.

But what I didn't expect to see were the St. Patricks Day decorations and Easter decorations. Easter, for goodness sake! We just finished Christmas and all of a sudden we've got months and months of Easter candy to kill our diets and make us feel guilty for eating Hershey's Kisses in pastel colored wrapping foil. What kind of devious mind thinks this retailing nightmare up? Easter is April 8th this year. Do we really need 3 full months to fill up a basket with candy? I think not.

Does this bother anyone else but me? It seems as if the retailers are counting more and more on holiday dreck to finance the rest of the year. I mean, why do we need St. Patrick's Day decorations anyhow. This said from a woman that lives in Boston which is CRAZY for St Patricks's Day and turns green on March 17th every year. Nothing like a green beer at any Irish pub in Boston to really ruin your appetite.

I think I find this retail nightmare particularly annoying because it's always the holidays our family doesn't celebrate that seem to be featured in retail heaven. As a Jewish family, we don't celebrate holidays that are actually saints days, like Valentines Day and St. Patrick's Day, and of course we don't celebrate Easter either. Maybe if they had Passover decorations (there really aren't any) it might make me feel differernt. But I find it difficult to be bombarded from late August to April with one Christian based holiday after another. It makes me feel like a stranger in my own country.

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[ READER COMMENTS ]

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Brianne said:

But really, are we all that surprised? Just think about how early Halloween candy comes out. I think the whole purpose retailers have, (other than to get as much of our hard earned money as they can) is that we'll go ahead and buy the candy, then we'll justify opening the bag for "just one piece," and before we know it - it's all gone (how did that happen?) and we have to buy more.
Repeat several times before the actual holiday, and all of a sudden, wha-la, we've spent a small fortune in candy!
Sounds like a good marketing plan to me...

Posted at 12:18 PM, on January 12 2007

I'm a holiday Scrooge, evidentally

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