I worked at Home Depot some years ago. They had one CD. No Marian Carey. Any resentment or anger would be reset hourly with Dean Martins, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”
Dino has done that song, but the one that kept me happy and sane is “it’s Marshmallow World” which technically (as many others) is a Winter song, not a Christmas Carol. And Dino owns it.
Like a pizza pie in the sky.
My guess is people who are making their own crafts and decorations, which can take some time, and I tend to give Michaels and other craft stores a pass on this issue.
Home Depot is into heavy rotation with Xmas decoration ads. I expect that they will have 25% of the parking lot blocked off for Xmas trees by the next time I go (which could be pretty soon, since I’m working on a project). I don’t know who’s buying a tree in early November and expecting it to still look good on the actual day, but some people do, I guess.
Except what was (barely) left was things like plates, napkins & pre-made table decorations/centerpieces. NO assembly required.
Well, yes, because the craft-y stuff had perforce gone weeks ago, and they have to make room for the Xmas craft stuff.
They had two small tables in an aisle (a very small fraction of a percentage of their total space) with the Thanksgiving clearance, a month before the holiday & before what I believe is the second biggest retail holiday (if not, it’s up there), so before people are even focused on the holiday. I wanted to buy something at full price that they had already let walk out the door at 50% off, so probably what they paid for it, which means it cost them money in terms of employee time to both order, inventory, & put out on the floor.
I wasn’t looking for anything Christmas related, & even if I was there were multiple aisles devoted to that stuff.
Saw Christmas garlands hanging up yesterday, and it’s been two weeks since I saw my first Advent calendar for sale at the store. Advent starts in 4 weeks.
This post makes no sense in the UK.. We call our gardens gardens because we garden in them, and garden centres are not departments in a larger store, they are the store.
The idea of a garden being restricted to a tiny area of the whole space is pretty weird over here- either people consider the whole space as a garden and make it all decorative and planted up, or they ignore or pave it all over, or lay shitty plastic fake grass. My ‘front yard’ is packed with flowers and shrubs, but I’d never call it that; in the UK, a ‘yard’ carries the connotation of being a busy non-decorative workspace, like a builder’s yard or farmyard. A garden centre wouldn’t sell anything useful for that.
Gardening centres have just been split into those which actually sell gardening supplies and those which stock some plants, tools and equipment but area increasingly selling clothing and random tat. The ones that sell gardening supplies sell them year round, and as winters aren’t that harsh, plants are available for every season- right now is ideal for planting bare root trees- but increasingly places are shifting towards selling more Christmas tat instead of the winter plants and garden supplies that they used to sell. I guess there’s more money in it, but I wish places that no-longer have at least a reasonable level of gardening equipment would stop calling themselves garden centres… and would stop their Christmas stuff from taking over the whole store.
Ugh. I worked in a place long ago that had One CD also. A nice medley of Christmas music. But it was a half-hour long. On repeat. Over a nine hour shift. For nearly two months.
It’s just not Christmas until I hear the Hippopotamus Song.
This little girl has it all figured out. Cites sources and evrything
I’m surprised. I’ve seen Christmas stuff in Costco since September.
In the UK, “front yards or gardens” are what Americans like me would consider postage stamp size. I was the one of the last on my block who didn’t give in to monstrous dandelions and tried growing wildflowers. Most others threw white rocks or paved their fronts.
In the backyard, we had monstrous hedges or something that the neighbours complained about even though their wall was about to collapse and they were about 3 feet higher.
Also had Bamboo in the corner. Then bamboo everywhere. That stuff is aggressive!
As for gardening shops, I only knew B&Q which is a carbon copy of Home Depot (where I had worked) and I got the stuff to battle the dandelions (impossible) and hedges there.
Only song I like is All I Want for Christmas is You
(Rod Serling:)
It’s Christmas time, filled with joy and laughter and the rare snowflake or chestnuts roasting over the fire. And joyful carols fill the air: White Christmas, Joy to the World, Silent Night.
Yet while these songs are playing and heard by all around, SuntanLotion can only hear one song. That song is “All I want for Christmas is You”. We can see some confusion upon her face as she hears this song in every shop, and upon returning to her car all of her radio stations are playing different parts of this song too.
Upon arriving home and entering her house, this same song is playing. No radio is on.
SuntanLotion, whether merrily or not, has entered the Twilight Zone.
I’m assuming you mean the Mariah Carey version. I prefer the earlier version by Vince Vance and the Valiants.
I like the way you think.
I would probably stop liking it then.
As I said, I like Christmas music…but not necessarily RADIO Christmas music, which is often remake after remake of the same dozen or so songs. At least some of the songs off the John Denver and the Muppets album sometimes get airplay. And some of the Charlie Brown Christmas tracks as well. And it’s always nice to hear the GRRRREAT!!! Thurl Ravenscroft singing “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
But there are others I wish would get more attention. It’s been ages since I’ve heard Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “A-Soalin’” on the radio. I’ve NEVER heard the Monkees’ “Riu Chiu”. And if they play the song from The Polar Express, why don’t they play “God Bless Us Every One” from Disney’s A Christmas Carol?
Most of my YouTube holiday playlist is this kind of thing…stuff you don’t often hear on the radio. (For example, I much prefer Frank Sinatra’s “Christmas Waltz” to “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Then there’s Vanessa Williams’ “Just Like Me”, a very sweet little song inspired by A Charlie Brown Christmas.
I concur. Oddly, at one of my programming jobs, we had Charlie Brown Christmas. Not on auto-replay, yet four or five times a day not at all unusual.
Sinatra and Dean Martin can do any of them, yet Andy Williams owns “Most wonderful time…”
I don’t know by name that Monkee’s song or the Vanessa Williams. Will check out.
A couple of the “modern” (like 40+ years ago) favorites are The Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping” and Pretenders “2000 miles”