Went to a local DIY store today – a very well-known one. I won’t mention the name as they’re not paying me for advertising! They had a whole section dedicated to Christmas. Trees, baubles, decorations, wreaths, and the obligatory toys. You know the ones where you press the button and the music starts.
I spent about 20 minutes in this section. I had to press all the buttons. It’s an addiction. So I had two shelves of toys singing jingle bells, and other jolly songs. Great fun. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It certainly cheered me up and me laugh. It also encouraged several more people to come over to that section. They were enjoying it too.
On a serious note though, we are only in October. It’s getting a bit ridiculous having Christmas stuff out so early. The prices are just as ridiculous. These singing toys were £15 each. The price of the decorations? £1 for one bauble. The whole thing is getting beyond a joke.
I don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious festival but I do enjoy it as a time spent with family and friends, and giving and receiving gifts. But regardless of how you wish to spend this time of year, it’s become a money-making racket.
One thing I did notice looking around this section of the store, was how easy it is to make a lot of the decorations they had used. For instance, there was one particular tree where they had attached red beads as berries and plastic fir cones. The cost of the tree was £92. How about collecting real fir cones from the local park. They’re free of charge. Get a necklace of red beads from a local charity shop and take it apart. String a few together and fasten it to any cheap tree. Put a bit of glitter on. Glitter can be obtained from Poundland. If you’ve got kids they’ll probably enjoy doing all this for you. It should keep them quiet for a short time as well.
Another decoration they were selling for £38 was a bunch of twigs tied together and cover in glitter. They craziest thing of all is that some people will actually these prices for things they can do themselves. Madness!
Great British Bake Off: Christmas
Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas [DVD]
Natural Matrix 