Christmas Too Early

Apparently a shopper with aspirations of being a social commentator has
again taken a stand against retailers stocking Christmas product too early.

The individual concerned has taken the bold step of re-labelling the
festive signs found in a supermarket with other home made slogans
including; ‘Not Yet Christmas’ and ‘Come Back In December’.

I am not sure what drove them to this end but the fact that they came
prepared suggest they had spent some time brewing their anger.

As funny as I find this action I am not advocating that we should all take
to the isles in such an act of defiance even though I can understand the
sentiment behind this latest protest.

I wonder if the store in question has any CCTV footage of the perpetrator
and whether they intend taking further action.

I can’t help thinking that life is meant to be seasonal and that having a
gap between summer and winter is good for us. They used to call this gap
autumn but now the edges of our historic divisions have been smudged.

All of this begs the question ‘when should the Christmas festivities
start?’

If we follow the song then we should start on the 24th December and
celebrate the twelve days of Christmas. If we enjoy the chocolate offered
by modern advent calendars then we would have to start at the very
beginning of the month.

Retailers, however, follow neither of these models and start well before
the rest of us have mourned the loss of summer. They then begin to rip
through the tinsel on Boxing Day to entice us in with massive sales.

Every family will have their own tradition and ours is no exception. The
tree is brought out on December the first and we begin our countdown to one
of our favourite holidays.

We often don’t even begin our shopping until this point. This will seem
odd to some. We have friends who begin buying their presents in the post
Christmas sales in preparation for the following year.

Whilst I admire their organisational skills in doing so, and the fact that
they save a good deal of money, I feel as if this is step too far for my
liking.

It also seems unfair to Santa (just in case we have younger readers) who
then has to store them for a full twelve months. This is a logistical
nightmare and must present health and safety issues in the North Pole.

You could imagine Father Christmas contacting his union in order to
complain about the extra workload. I wonder what type of action he might
take in order to place the celebrations firmly back where they have
traditionally been.
He could work to rule and only deliver to houses that still have chimneys.
He could limit his involvement to families that can be bothered to provide
mince pies and a tot of whiskey as he makes his travels.

Or he could visit the Bradford area in September and re-label the
Christmas decorations in a supermarket. I cant wait to see the CCTV
footage.

Sayings

In a recent quiz we were challenged to think of twenty well known proverbs; fine you might think! If we weren’t under the pressure of having to come up with them to save our team’s honour against other collections of humanity it would be fine. As it was we were struggling big time.



We could come up with three straight away and then all went blank. I don’t want to blame age as a the main cause of our unfruitfulness but it does seem to be a recurring theme these days as we rush our way towards fifty not out. The memory loss is one thing but the propensity to be easily distracted is another.



Our first two proverbs caused me the most problem in this respect. ‘Two many cooks spoil the broth’ and ‘Many hands make light work’. I couldn’t help pondering how such seemingly simplistic proverbs could be so diametrically opposed. With these two sayings we are faced with a serious problem when it comes to soup making; either we suffer the consequence of having too much staff in the kitchen and consume sub-standard minestrone, or we find it to be such hard work due to lack of help that we become too exhausted to eat it.



When we finally got going with our quiz answers we were faced with other contradictory problems. How am I supposed to believe that I am ‘never to old to learn’ if at the same time it is impossible to ‘teach an old dog new tricks’. This never seemed to be problem when I was younger but now it has a certain poignancy.



When I was in my twenties I was happy to try new things living by the spirit of the youthful saying ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’. Now, however, it appears that the power of this saying has been reduced by the fact that is ‘better to be safe than sorry’.



I turned to my team mates and asked them if they felt a similar amount of confusion at this point; after all we were joined together because we had much in common, as if confirming the truism ‘birds of a feather flock together’. Nobody else shared my concern leaving me to feel slightly excluded until one of our group pointed out that ‘opposites attract’; thus proving my point. I think perhaps I am at the age where I should make up my own proverbs that fit with my midlife status. Try these:



‘Whatever hair you lose on you head grows in your ears and nose’



‘If it is not on the shopping list it doesn’t get bought’



‘Pastry can only be eaten once a week’



‘If you wear that style of clothes long enough it will eventually come back in fashion’



This one is important because after all ‘clothes maketh the man’ although, come to think of it you shouldn’t ‘judge a book by its cover’ so it doesn’t matter after all. Confused! I think we should let sleeping dogs lie.

Foraging

There was a time when Sunday afternoon TV was a family safe experience; apart from Songs of Praise that is.



Now, however, I am forced to get through my well-earned weekend slice of toast whilst watching someone called Bear Grylls eating all manner of creepy-crawlies.



As I write he has just caught a beetle, that seemed to be minding its own business, and popped it in his mouth without thought for what it might do for my digestion. He followed this less than appetising starter with a main course of moth maggot. He first removed its innards before consumption because otherwise, apparently, it would have been disgusting and contain something harmful. To say that he was trying to present it as an enjoyable experience he seemed to do a lot of spitting out.



I think the point of the show, apart from putting me off my mid afternoon snack, is to remind us of our long lost role as hunter-gatherers.



Well let me nail my colours to the mast and say that I am truly glad that we have moved from hunter-gatherers to shopper-baggers.



We might have become slaves to the sell-by date and the nutrition label but at least you know where you stand with a bag of salad leaf and a tin of tuna.



Whilst Bear forages in the undergrowth of Latin American countries I am happy to dodge the shopping trolleys of the Great British public in order to makes sure that my family doesn’t have to eat grubs and bugs; give me fruit and nut any day.



The only bit of foraging we do in the supermarket these days is when we chose loose fruit and veg rather the pre-packed product offered to us. Perhaps this is the retailer’s way of appealing to our basic need to feel as if we are fully involved in the gathering process.



This said, I have noticed a similarity between Bear Grylls and me on a Saturday trip to the shops; neither of us can get a plastic bag without an argument. His need for them is less than mine because he does tend to catch and eat his prey almost in one move.



When our kids where younger they seemed to have this immediacy as an in built mechanism when it came to the pick and mix sweet section. Whilst we parents were looking around the shelves for our required produce they would appear with chocolate stained faces.



My wife was always fearful that we might be challenged by the management about our children’s’ waywardness but I had a solution ready to offer the store in such circumstances.



They could weigh the child on the way into the shop and compare this with their weight at the exit and we would willingly pay for the difference.



I could, of course, just claim they were exercising their basic instinct to be true hunter-gatherers and if all else fails blame the influence of Bear Grylls.