Money $mas, everybody

Bah, humbug.

I am in a cranky mood because we ran errands the other day and I just can't believe that Halloween and Christmas are merging into one long candy-fest/consumer orgy. I used to hate it when people called Christmas "Xmas," but now the season has gotten so commercial that I think we might as well call it "$mas."

Here are the three things that are really getting on my nerves:

1. Christmas decorations in the mall and Christmas music playing in all the stores. I can tolerate about 2 weeks of Christmas music at the most. At the very least wait until after Thanksgiving to start with it.

2. Christmas presents for dogs and cats at Petsmart. This really brought the consumerism overload home for me. There are gift-filled dog stockings, Barbie-brand dog toys, and tons of "outfits" for dogs out now. This is gross. Who are we buying this for? It looks like the ultimate in wasteful spending. Why not direct this money and effort into a cause that truly needs support?

3. Candy samples everywhere. We went grocery shopping at Whole Foods. Two weeks ago there were caramel candy-apple samples out for Halloween, and now there are gingerbread cookies and holiday chocolates placed at a kid's-eye level. I know I can say no as a parent, but it's hard to say no to everything and it feels like our kids are bombarded by sweets morning, noon, and night.

We're traveling abroad over Thanksgiving, and it will be interesting to see how it's done in other parts of the world. More on that next time. We're all busy packing our suitcases and getting ready to go, and I am happy to report that for this trip, Michael has done almost all of the advance planning.

Signing off in the midst of holiday bombardment,

Money $mas to all, and to all a good (extended shopping until mid-) night.