Hey, Who Stole Xmas?

By Dian Vujovich

I’m confused, befuddled and saddened. It’s August 26th and I haven’t gotten one, not one, Christmas catalogue in the mail yet. For that matter, any catalogues with a few pages in them showing off their Christmas wares. What’s going on?

Guess the obvious answer to that is the economy. Or maybe the green-thing is making its mark and some stores don’t like the idea of cutting down the trees that make the paper that make the pages that showcase their goods. Nah, that sounds a little to romantic even for me.

Or maybe the cost of mailing them has gotten so high and, combined with the economic challenges of the day, corporate big wigs have decided to cut out mailing a catalogue or two. A decision like that would have to save them a bundle—but what about my bundle.

Okay, I’ll admit that I’m not a big catalogue shopper but I sure do like leafing through each one page-by-page and dog-earing those that have things on them to add to my wish list. It’s a wonderful pastime. Free, too. And can make for hours, well minutes, of fanciful fantasies and dreaming about all sorts of stuff I really don’t need but don’t mind thinking I do.

Heck, the Consumer Confidence Index was up in July from its record low in February, the markets have been on a tear and portfolios are plumper now then they were a few months back, so are savings accounts but still no Christmas in July mailings came my way.

So whoever the bean counters are who’ve stolen my Christmas catalogue dreams, stop it. If there’s one thing we all could use during these challenging economic times, it’s a little more dreaming.