Fast Track to Stress

Do any two consecutive months on the calendar pass as quickly as November and December?

I've long said it: once you get past Halloween, it's a slippery slope to the end of the year.

This is both good and bad.

November is almost done, just like that---as usual. Wasn't it just the other day when I was passing out candy?

I say it's good and bad because the holiday season swoops in and that means more expense, more stress and more weight gained.

So it's good that it all happens so fast.

But it's also bad, because there doesn't seem to be enough time for everything, like shopping. More to the point, there doesn't seem to be enough time to assemble the funds needed for said shopping.

Starting on November 1, Thanksgiving already begins to creep into the minds of our lovely wives, who, whether hosting the holiday feast or not, have arrangements and plans to think about.

Turkey Day came relatively early this year (the earliest it can occur is November 22 and this year it came on November 24), just three weeks and some change after Halloween. That means that while the mini Snickers bars and tiny M&M bags leftover from a lack of kid traffic on Halloween sat in plain sight, begging to be consumed, Thanksgiving's meal was already being planned.

We go from candy to candied yams, just like that.



How do we go from this.....



...to this, in a matter of days? (or so it seems)



Retailers don't help, of course. They can't wait to shove the Halloween displays aside and replace them with wreaths and inflatable Santas. One of the radio stations in town has made it a habit in recent years of starting to play Christmas tunes on November 1. I don't pity the listeners (they can change the station), I feel for the employees, who have to listen to that for 54 days before Christmas even arrives.

TV ads shouting about Black Friday specials begin on or around November 1. The Internet sprouts stories of impending BF deals like pimples on a teenager's face just before prom.

It's all designed, I'm convinced, to throw us into a panicked tizzy.

So far, Mrs. Eno and I have managed to squeeze some Christmas shopping in, before November ends---which for us is unusual. The game plan this year is to chip away at it. Of course, that's our game plan every year. And every year we scramble in mid-December.

Which is mere days after the ghosts and goblins have left our front porch. Or so it seems.

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