Thoughts About the Holidays

So next week is the 'official' beginning of the 'holiday' season. It kicks off for many with the Thanksgiving Day celebration on the fourth Thursday of November, and continues on through Christmas Day, sometimes pushing until New Year's Day. This is not the schedule kept by everyone, but it is the traditional schedule for the United States - Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year's Day..

Happy Everything just about sums it up. 

However, those of us in retail know differently. Our holiday season actually begins in the spring, certainly no later than mid-summer, when we try to decide what goods to bring in and when to begin our 'celebration'. Many of the larger stores and chains are already playing holiday music over their speakers. They started doing that immediately after Halloween and, in some die-hard cases, even before Samhain. But I'm a believer in allowing each holiday to have their own time. Our store's Christmas tree won't be put up until Wednesday, the 27th and our holiday music won't start until the 29th. I'll attach our garland to our display cases that morning, and hang our wreaths. We don't do things too fancy, but we still want to celebrate the season a bit and make the store look somewhat festive.

I just have to decorate one small store, not an entire mall.
Does anyone else thing the decorations on this tree look like jellyfish or aliens?

I'll try and get some time to work on our Email notification for our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales, and I'll send that out early next week to our email list customers. We're busy polishing and rearranging, pricing and packing, and trying to get the store looking spiffy. For four Sundays in December, I'll have to work from noon until 4:00 pm which really punches a hole in my day and gives me a 6-day-a-week work schedule. I also have to get gifts ordered for the few people I give gifts to. But I am TOTALLY not in the mood for the holidays this year.

This "Snow Queen" window is rather attractive. My windows won't
be as elaborate or exciting. 

I haven't even started designing my Solstice cards yet. I have to get those going quickly, my time is running out. But I really want to continue my momentum with my writing (1300 words so far this morning) and we have other things on our agendas too like continuing to fix up the small house to put it on sale in the spring, and trying to finish all of the paperwork from my father-in-law's estate so that we can set up an appointment with our accountant and discuss the taxes. My DH is super stressed right now, which means things are a bit - well...a lot - strained between us right now, and I'm just not in the mood for "Holly, Jolly". I hope that when I see my first Christmas special - "Frosty the Snowman," "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer," or "A Christmas Story," I'll be more in the mood for the holidays. But right now, it's the last thing I want to think about.

I love "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer". It's low-tech and simply marvelous. 

*sigh*

'Frosty the Snowman' is another holiday favorite of mine. No 3-D here!

So what about you? Do you camp out in front of your favorite store on Black Friday hoping to be one of the first ones through the door? Or are you going to shop via your computer instead, and hibernate for as long as you can get away with it? All I know is 'Winter is Coming' and just like the Starks in "Game of Thrones," we're running out of time.