Look, nobody said you have to start singing “Little Drummer Boy”.
I understand, okay? A lot of you have jokes about “pumpkin spice already?” you’re planning to toss at people. Been there. Do it myself. But this is not part of the popular hatred for impending holidays (and/or winter) but an expression of the basic human impulse to say “Wait. What? It was just Memorial Day a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it? It can’t possibly be that time of year. I just got the air conditioner to…. Fall starts next week? Are you sure you didn’t flip over two pages of the calendar at once?”
Anyhow, I have started adding Christmas postcards to my offerings for sale online. Yes, I KNOW there are other holidays which come first but a) I don’t have many Halloween cards, which are highly collectible and seldom turn up in the job lots I add to my inventory, and b) I listed all my Thanksgiving cards in August.
This is partially out of a concern for certain of my customers. Christmas preparations come in two schools, the “I Must Get Ready, I Have Only Three Months To Go”, and, “Ready? You Need To Do Something Before Christmas Eve?” And, see, both of these schools of thought spend about the same amount of money.
So I am making my listings for those of you who are planning vast decoupage displays for your front window. (I dislike the idea of my vintage collectibles being pasted to your composite backings, but what you do once you’ve paid is your business.) I am thinking of people who MUST have forty-seven vintage postcards, unused, to serve as gift tags. In short, I am prepared to exploit the weaknesses of people who start their Christmas shopping in June, and are now just looking for those last flourishes. (And, hey, those in the second camp, who figure “Well, better get started”, buy one thing, and then do nothing else until the Winter Solstice.)
I know I’m ahead of time by the standards of analog retail establishments, but they are restricted by the floorspace in the store. I have fewer concerns with display space on the world wide interwebs.
And it sort of comes naturally to me. For those who came in late and could not guess from my polished and professional style, I have been a professional writer since 19…hmm, must’ve turned over six pages in the calendar at once. Having chosen to spend my time writing short stories, the second least profitable writing choice after poetry, I had to pay attention to the demands of my market. And your magazine world works on an entirely different calendar.
To keep that rabbit hole shallow, let’s just point out that any monthly magazine which published Christmas material needed to see it in March. February was even better. So while the rest of the world was busy sending Valentines, I was writing fiction about warm hearthsides decorated with evergreens while outdoors the snow fell and reindeer danced on the shingles. (When this story was published, as sometimes it would be, it logically appeared in the February issue of the magazine, since the date on the cover and the newsstand stocking date were so…never mind. We’re keeping this short and eighty percent of you have never seen a newsstand.)
What I’m saying, Egg Nog Latte, is that just putting Christmas postcards up for sale is not nagging you to get busy and celebrate the occasion. Those of us on my side of the equation, after all, will do our celebrating much later ourselves. And that’s only if something actually sells.
Blogsy Babbles 