Sue’s Views: ‘Bah humbug’ to mince pies in May

So there I am, trolling around my local supermarket heading for the red plonk section when a twinkling light catches my eye. Nosy old crow that I am, I head off to investigate and lo and behold! An aisle full of Christmas décor bursts forth in all its twee, plastic bauble splendour.

Now my question is what in the name of all that’s holy is Christmas décor doing on the shelves in October?

It’s a good two and a half months until the blessed event and it very much looks as if our dear retailers have got in on the transatlantic version of ‘Christmas Creep’, a term used to describe how retailers in Europe and America try to sneak their holiday merchandise onto shelves in small increments early in the year.

ALSO READ: Sue’s Views: Doctor Google, I presume?

Instead of putting everything out in large quantities and looking completely unaware of what season it is, stores slowly but surely start adding Christmas items to their shelves and allow it to ‘creep’ into our shopping experience.

Here in Africa, our retailers are about as subtle as a bull in a china shop when it comes to ‘Christmas Creep’. No small allotment of tinsel and overpriced ornaments for the fake fir tree if you please. No siree, it’s go big or go home. It’s akin to entering a psychedelic world of colliding blinking, twinkling lights bouncing off fake snow-tipped pine cones festooned with plastic berries and gaudy tinsel.
Now some psychoanalyst pundits would have us believe that putting up Christmas décor early is good for the soul, lowers anxiety and gets us all twitchy with emotion and nostalgia for the Christmas of our youth….hogwash I say.

Wait until ‘Kenny G’ or ‘Boney M’ hit store speakers on eternal repeat, bleating out canned Christmas cheer accompanied by screaming ankle biters with snot bubbles. The thought thereof has already raised my blood pressure and anxiety levels and darn it I still have 70 odd days of this to Christmas.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Like the South Coast Herald’s Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram

To receive our FREE email newsletter, click HERE