From Season of the Witch to Seasons are a Bitch

The "seasonal" department shelves in retail stores (including pharmacies) are arranged by colors: Black & Orange - Brown, Red, & Gold - Red & Green, Blue & Silver and usually from left to right in that order .

The prices of Witches, Ghosts, Spiders, Black & Orange products are significantly, even severely discounted since their time to glow is over while the Turkeys, Pilgrims, Dead Leaves, Brown, Red & Gold items are marked down reasonably with their spotlight beginning to shine only to be turned off in 2-weeks time anyway.  Soon enough these items will suffer the fate of the long-gone Black & Orange junk; their prices reduced to below original cost to keep them from the dumpster. 

Home improvement stores have had pre-lighted, artificial trees on display since September. At present in most stores here, the Red & Green, Blue & Silver doo-dads are glowing brightly and selling (or not) at premium only. Their tinsel, bright lights, candles, and annoying glittery objects overflow onto the department floor while greedily eyeing the shelf space of the Black & Orange trinkets.  By the time the inevitable invasion by the 4 colors happens, they too will become the markdown du jour. (BTW, Peppermint canes have been visible since September.  Why not leave them on display all year? They'll survive the next ice age, anyway.)

I predict the bright Red & Pink Hearts  will arrive any time after Black Friday with the Green Shamrocks, Pots-o-Gold, and Leprechauns making ready their entrance for just after the New Year. Not in great quantities, mind you, but enough to work as reminder in  the shoppers' subconscious.

If Chocolate Bunnies, colored eggs, multicolored baskets and baby chicks appear later than Valentine's Day, I will likely go into shock. 

As the mighty Hallmark knelt before the Christian Crazies by changing the lyric  of "Deck The Halls"  from "don we now our gay apparel" to "don we now our FUN apparel" on their annual Holiday ornament, there is one less fa-la-la-la-la to go around. Notice that the word "FUN" is in all caps, too. Not so for all the others.  OK, we get it.  We GET it. But wait, what about this?:

Deck the hall with boughs of holly,Fa la la la la la la la la.‘Tis the season to be jolly,Fa la la la la la la la la.Don we now our gay apparelTroll the ancient Yuletide carol, Fa la la la la la la la la

What about the word "Troll"  huh?  Why leave Troll alone? There's gonna be some pissed-off Trolls this season. I mean, think about how many Trolls are going to be offended this Ho-Ho season. Nah. Hallmark is probably not hip or savvy enough to get the connection.  But, we gets it, don't we precious? Yes, we does.

See what you get when I go "Out & About" anymore?

And so it goes.
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