Musings on...Slowing the Holiday Sales Cycle
Marking the Magic of the Middle
Hear me correctly, I do love Christmas, but in good conscience, I cannot unfurl the lights and garland before Thanksgiving. If you’re like Mariah and her November 1 meltdown, I’m not mad at you, I just won’t join you just yet. I’m no Grinch (I watch the animated special every year), but I insist that the fourth Thursday in November is a standalone event, not the prelude to Christmas or an afterthought to Halloween. From my work in retail, I see how everyone seems intent to move from season to season at lightning speed.
As I was stocking the back to school notebooks and highlighters, people kept stopping me and asking if we had the Halloween items. Ma’am can you please take a seat and let us get the kids back to school first? It is August 3, why don’t you go over there and buy a pile of these orange spiral bound notebooks if you’re so ready for autumn. That is what I say in my head, because, you know, customer service. It’s especially vexing here in Florida because the fall semester is early August. In Michigan, school begins after Labor Day, in Florida back to school comes 5 short weeks after the 4th of July. Must we decorate for an event at the end of October, the second week of August? Nevertheless, the autumn/Halloween décor was available by August 16.
As soon as the pumpkin spice candles and costumes were set, we began stocking the Christmas ornaments in the storeroom. And what about Thanksgiving? It got half of an aisle of turkey napkins and platters festooned with leaves. Literally, one half of an aisle. I would not be out of turn saying that Thanksgiving is the much neglected sibling. Just let Thanksgiving get the hand me down gourds and leaves from the autumn displays while we get on to Christmas. At this point, we have 9 weeks of Halloween, approximately 8 weeks of Christmas and Thanksgiving grudgingly squeezed in the middle.
I see you middle child. I realize that Thanksgiving is not a sexy holiday, saddled with a questionable origin story, but the true intent of it is evident: its right there in the name. We must stop between the candied apples and hanging the stockings to appreciate the bounty of life’s harvest for this year.
I posted an Adventures in Workland installment about being grateful for our work environments and work families. I posted it a little early, taking the stand that true gratitude shouldn’t have a season, but I don’t want us to rush past the actual sanctioned day for thankfulness.
As you sit to enjoy your harvest feast, I want to make sure I say thank you, dear reader for being just that to me, a dear reader and subscriber. When I began this newsletter, I did it with no fanfare, no traditional marketing launch. I just started writing and publishing into the darkness of the internet. It was just an exercise to revisit the joy I had as a child of writing. Where would it go, what would it bring to my life, I had not determined or planned. Just fingers to keyboard, ideas and musings traveling from my head to the screen.
Thank you for finding me. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for opening each newsletter and hopefully reading it to the end, or not. Thank you for going on this journey with me. I don’t know where it will take us, but I feel grateful that we are taking it together.
I can tell you that my husband thanks you (silently). Because of you, he does not have to take the full brunt of my mind’s minutiae when he asks me the question “What are you thinking?” Does anyone else’s spouse/partner ask such loaded questions? The first minute, he thinks I’m interesting, the second minute, he wanders off. After five minutes he is questioning all of his life’s choices. My mom told me growing up “Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to.” My husband hasn’t learned that lesson yet. For you, he is thankful.
Tomorrow, I will click into Christmas mode. I will pull the tree from storage, plan my table setting and I will write the gift list for my family. I am ready for all the Christmas carols, I love them all, and I can listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” every time it plays. I never get sick of it. When my family is groaning and screaming, I am still loving it. I begrudge Mimi not one replay.
But before I hang one ornament, I must give today its due attention and act out its meaning. I love my life and consider myself very blessed. You are a part of my annual bounty. Know that you are appreciated and coveted. Your support is a part of the beautifully random pieces of my life. I am thinking of you today and sending you all the best thoughts and prayers of love, health and prosperity.