Christmas Curmudgeon

So I do not mean to be a Holiday Season Curmudgeon………. BUT....

I can’t help it.  So here goes!  I now need a rolling duffel bag when I go to my mailbox just to get the catalogs and local ads from my mailbox to my house. 

And although I know I should throw them away without even a glance, there’s all that pressure to take just a tiny peek inside.  Isn’t there?  Look at all the trouble they went to just to get this into my hands.  So let’s start with the food catalogs.

So did you know you can get popcorn in a “Song Sampler”?    I mean, does it sing to you?   Popcorn flavors are way out there these days: cinnamon, chocolate, sea salt caramel (doesn’t everything have this flavor today?  What happened to originality?), white cheddar, kettle, S’mores (Here’s another overdone flavor.  News Flash:  I’m not a Girl Scout anymore.) There are gallon containers (up to six gallons, really) and tower boxes and samplers, baskets and foil wrapped, and gift certificates – just in case you can’t make the final decision.  There are chewy things and gooey things and crisp things.  There are Holiday Traditions to start – just order here! There are gifts for the indulgent, the decadent, the connoisseur.  The gifts are the ultimate, impressive, the tastiest, the freshest.  There are signature gifts, gifts to personalize, gifts for clients, friends and family.  You can send food from Wisconsin (cheese), New York (lox and bagels), Hawaii (Maui Wowie onions), Florida (citrus fruits), Atlantic City (salt water taffy), Seattle (fish) and more.  There’s salami and smoked salmon and brownies, and candy (hard, soft, crunchy, chewy, white, dark, milk); there’s hams and turkeys, coffee, cocoa, peppermints, and cheesecake.  You’ve got wine clubs and candy clubs and fruit clubs and – I can get the pears, but the partridge? Not.   

There’s even one item up to two pages of Chanukah stuff (especially if the item comes in blue or is wrapped with blue and doesn’t contain ham);  one catalog just refers you to their web site if you want any Chanukah things. 

So, have a happy time looking through all those catalogs where food is shaped like reindeers or Santa or bark, tasting of S’Mores or smoke or mint and contributing to the overweight problems of America while the paper forests are stripped clean to create the catalog and I break my back bringing it all into my home!