'Musings from under the duvet': September 2011

Can anyone believe it’s September already!

I know its September because

a) my school teacher friend and I didn’t get to have a girly day together during the school holidays despite pledging in June ‘This year we’re definitely going to find the time!’

b) having umm’d and aaaah’d about taking my light weight summer cover off the bed and putting the duvet back the nights have warmed up again and the hot flushes are back with a vengeance

and

c) yep, you’ve guessed it, the Christmas cards are in the shops and I saw my first Christmas advert last night!

It’s the beginning of SEPTEMBER – don't any of them own a calendar? It’s almost 4 months to Christmas day – that’s one third of the year we're going to be subjected to all this commercial hype for 1 day!

I don’t know about anyone else but I used to love Christmas, which I never even started to think about until well after bonfire night – and that’s when I had the whole family coming for days over the holiday and had all the menus to plan, shopping to do, nagging the ex to get the decorating finished he’d started in April so I could cover it all up with Christmas decorations...................I loved all the hustle and bustle.

But this obsession with retailers ‘being the first’ is one of my absolute pet hates and almost makes me dread Christmas (If only we could get back to it being primarily a birthday celebration - how great would that be????...........).

Back to the retailers - they try to justify their greed by saying they’re responding to consumer demand. Well, I’d love to meet the consumer who’s demanding Christmas goodies (I’m sure there can only be one!) while most people are still wearing summer tops, eating al fresco and thinking they might take a late summer break because ‘September is usually a lovely month’. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to hates all this early hype as much as I do.

The card shops are usually the first, although I think some of the supermarkets have already jumped on the band wagon. I wouldn’t know because from now to the end of November I deliberately avoid those aisles until it gets to the point you can’t go in anywhere from Lidl’s to Waitrose without being smacked in the face with ‘seasonal items’.

As I said, card shops are always the first offenders. They grab the consumer from now on to draw their attention to the fact they have oh my gosh only 15 weeks to get their Christmas cards, wrapping paper, and over priced glittery spangly bits ready to stick all over the presents they’re going to be buying each week from now until early December. They grab you convincing you the earlier you buy all your paper, cards etc the more organised you will be. You’ll convince yourself that this year, contrary to all the years which have gone before, if you start now you’ll have a stress free, relaxing Christmas. You’ll be patting yourself on the back thinking of everyone opening carefully selected presents, wrapped beautifully with coordinating ribbon and other assorted decoration, oohing and aahing over your creativity and attention to detail.

The reality is you’ll splurge on cards, coordinated paper , ribbon, bows, festive confetti and numerous other paraphernalia, come home and ‘put them in a safe place’. You’ll then think ‘That’s enough forward planning for a couple of weeks – I’ll start present buying in October’.

The next you know you wake up half way through December , realise you’ve missed the last date for 2^nd class postage, haven’t bought a single present, and it’s 3 weeks to pay day which is 31 December so a fat lot of help that's going to be.

And to add insult to injury you can’t for the life of you remember where you put all those carefully selected cards, wrapping paper, confetti and glittery, spangly bows! Oh well, there’s always next year.............

I've had a great couple of nights out this week which I’ll tell you all about in my next blog post (and I promise to make it soon but I really must get this posted and get up! Writing in my favourite place this morning wearing my favourite pyjamas and it’s gone lunchtime!)

But I must just tell you this. The weirdest thing happened – on both occasions the performers, one the ring master (now there’s a clue....) and the other a female comedian called Jo told the same opening joke. It didn’t make it less funny – I laughed both times but I did wonder if Jo and I had been at the same venue the night before????...................

To finish off this morning and remind us all summer has only just passed over the horizon on its way elsewhere in the world here’s some photo’s my brother recently took and sent me. He loves going off with his camera early in the morning and capturing creation at it’s finest. I think these remind us nothing man made can compare with mother natures finest...............