While shopping at a retail facility about an hour from home, I decided to make notes concerning the myriad of products available for your holiday decorating. Fact is stranger than fiction, my friends. If you don’t invest enough time seeking out holiday trends, let me fill you in. Snowmen and snowflakes are the big thing this year. Aren’t you glad you read this column? You’d be at your house putting up that same old reindeer wreath from 1975 ... if I hadn’t warned you that reindeer are on their way out. Totally passé.
For $9.99, you can pick up the ever-popular snowman kitchen timer. For a mere $7.99, you can get the matching salt and pepper shakers. But here’s my favorite. For $14.99, you can get the snowman condiment server. Do you have a snowman condiment server? If you don’t, you need to get one. Some of you had planned to put the mayo and mustard in regular little bowls. What a faux pas that would be.
For $8.99, you can get the Holiday Memories candle which smells like gingerbread, sugar cookies and all things homemade. For some of you this won’t bring back holiday memories at all. Some of you probably come from non-baking families. That’s OK. Maybe your Uncle Charlie provided a box of chocolates for the Christmas event. If you come from a non-baking family, do NOT buy the Holiday Memories candle. It won’t do what it promises. Go directly to the candy aisle and buy a Whitman’s Sampler. Open the box. Pinch all the pieces of chocolate until you find a caramel. Stick your nose in the box and sniff. This will bring appropriate holiday memories for you. You’re quite welcome.
For $149.99, you can purchase bobbing reindeer with gold and silver lights. I’m serious. Wait a second. I stated earlier that reindeer were passé. OK. Let me straighten this out. If you insist on using your reindeer wreath from 1975 ... then, and only then, you’re allowed to buy the $149.99 bobbing reindeer for the front yard. I know. This can get complicated.
Incidentally, contrary to what you might see in retail outlets, the following colors are NOT, I repeat NOT, Christmas colors: lime green, lavender, sky blue and navy. I was amazed at how many Christmas products were being sold in these colors. Good night! What’s happening in this country? Are we so unstable that we don’t even know what the Christmas colors are any more?
But my absolute favorite Christmas product this year is the “Baby Einstein Christmas” DVD for a mere $14.99. This is a Christmas DVD for infants in Spanish, French and English. Yes. You read that right. I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who buy the “Baby Einstein Christmas” DVD are the same people who are decorating for Christmas with lime green, sky blue and lavender. May I have a word with you people? Your baby’s budding multi-lingual ability means nothing if he’s messed up on the Christmas colors. Think with me for a moment. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, John F. Kennedy and Condoleezza Rice have what two things in common? NONE of them saw the “Baby Einstein Christmas” DVD as infants. And I’m betting that every last one of them grew up in a house with red and green Christmas decorations. I rest my case.
OK. Let me sum it all up. Christmas is not a time to stress about shopping. Stores are selling Christmas products we don’t need. Abe Lincoln never watched a DVD. Christmas colors are red and green. My job here is done.
Editor’s note: Lisa Smartt’s column appears each Wednesday in the Friends and Neighbors section of The Messenger. Mrs. Smartt is the wife of Philip Smartt, the University of Tennessee at Martin parks and recreation and forestry professor, and is mother to two boys, Stephen and Jonathan. She is a freelance writer and speaker. Her book “The Smartt View: Life, Love, and Cluttered Closets” is available at The Messenger, The University of Tennessee at Martin bookstore or by mail for $10, plus $2 shipping. Send checks to Lisa Smartt, 300 Parrott Road, Dresden TN 38225. She can be reached by e-mail at lisa@lisasmartt.com.
Published in The Messenger on 11.28.07