Premature Retailisation

I ventured into my local Sainsbury's today. Not a particularly unusual event for me, I'm often to be found in there as I have no life. What I saw this afternoon beggars belief; it's only September 10th and they already have a large display of Halloween merchandise on sale.

Now unless the United Coalition of Pagans (which doesn't even exist to the best of my knowledge) has decided to move this celebration to an earlier date, this is bloody crazy. We're seven weeks away from the 31st October so do we really need to be offered the chance to purchase a floppy plastic spider or green witch's mask quite yet!? Oh, and for the record, witches are not normally green - I know one and she's only ever greenish after a night on the drink, but then she is Northern so even this isn't witch related.

It gets worse. A trip to my local Morrisons reveals that they are already trying to push Christmas sweet selections upon unwary customers who apparently mistakenly hold the belief that it's still only late fecking summer! Every year the supermarkets appear to roll out the festive fancies earlier and earlier, it's like a sugary Santa version of the Beaujolais Nouveau race with retailers vying to be the first to shove their wares on the shelf. The ludicrous thing is that much of these items have a sell-by-date well before Christmas, technically making them unfit for the purpose for which they are sold as they're not even fit to bloody eat by then!

The real shame, however, is that all this premature marketing must have some impact on children. When I was young I would look forward to Christmas, waiting for the festive season to begin and eagerly anticipating what was to come. These days children are assaulted by Christmas fare so early that the wait for the big day must seem interminable. Why do we have to be in such a rush to get through each year anyway? No wonder the years seem to fly by the older we get, it’s because everywhere we look the shops are wishing our days away with such greedy ferocity.

Still, it’s not all bad; this afternoon I picked up some great Easter Eggs and the January Sales probably start next week!