When I was younger, it was awhile ago let’s just leave it at that. I remember when the Rose of Tralee was on TV I knew that dreaded back to school was close. That was literally the first indication that reality was closing in and my endless summer of scratching was closing in. Now Dunnes Stores do Back to School offers in June? The bleedin’ kids haven’t even got the holidays yet. I was walking through Dunnes Stores a few weeks back and they actually had Halloween costumes out in early August. Who buys these?
There seems to be a panic/plan in big retail to push us from occasion to occasion with no time in between. We won’t get anywhere near Halloween and the shops will be decked out for Christmas. Then we’ll be hobbling to Christmas weighed under with shopping bags full of gifts and then Valentine’s and Paddy’s Day need preparing for and the shops will be pushing Paddywhackery. Oh and don’t mention Easter which will be piled on in January with aisles of Easter Eggs. Until it rolls around to Summer Holidays and Back to School all over again.
Don’t get me wrong PlayBlue are not 100% innocent in this. We will have Christmas and Valentine’s offers too and we have placed suppliers orders for both already. But we never mention Christmas offers or sales (I know I’ve just have but they are not open yet) until November at the earliest. Would you believe we have already started planning around Valentine’s Day product specials, mad isn’t it? But you won’t hear about them until the end of January.
I don’t doubt in large retail there is a push to fabricate an early summer shopping event, maybe Midsummer Festival to fill that lull between Easter and Back to School. I’m no grouch I love the family holidays and events and look forward to them all, but if we continue to let large retail merge them all into one continuous year long shopping event I believe they will all lose their value and meaning and we’ll end up a lot poorer wading through a load of useless crap we don’t need while also destroying the planet.
So may I suggest if everyone absolutely refuses to partake in any discussion or purchasing or social media surrounding these holidays until close to the events we can retain these as times to cherish and savour that give structure to our year.