Christmas Watch 2009

Or should that be 'Winterval Watch'? Anyway, here we are, in late September, enjoying an 'Indian Summer', with the delights of Autumn (possibly my favourite season) just around the corner, and what do I find invading local supermarkets? Mince pies, tins of chocolate biscuits and Quality Street, all on special offer. Not, of course, that Christmas is actually mentioned anywhere in relation to these special offers. Nor is there any sign, as yet, of discounted Christmas decoration, puddings or turkeys. Nevertheless, this does seem to be the earliest Christmas retail invasion I can remember. Indeed, the mince pies appeared as soon as we entered September and the kids were back at school.

It really would be nice if, just for once, we were allowed to actually enjoy the Autumn without it being gatecrashed by bloody Christmas! I always thought that the one good thing about the colonisation of our popular culture by the Americanised version of Halloween was that this at least created a buffer between Summer and Christmas, effectively preventing retailers from swinging into full Yuletide mode before November. This year, however, I fear that we'll see blood-soaked 'Psycho Santa' costumes on sale for Halloween, along with hollowed out Christmas puddings in place of the more traditional pumpkins. Perhaps 'trick or treaters' will be encouraged to throw bottles of egg nog at people's houses rather than eggs - especially if the householder has given them 'After Eight' mints instead of proper sweets...