The Christmas Circus

4 December 2025

This morning, I opened yet another box of a slasher-sale purchase.  When the ballet flats are 71% on sale, online, how do I pass them up?  They’re lovely, and they fit!  My naked feet are much less naked nowadays.

A second pair from this brand was in order.  (And the company and seller are still making a tidy capitalist profit, even at 71% off of MSRP.)

The box is comical, New York City has always been a circus.  Having elected its first openly Socialist Mayor just got the wrecking-ball rolling faster!

This afternoon, Dear Husband had to make a third trip in 10 days to Costco.  We keep finding items that we thought we’d had, but didn’t; or didn’t have enough of, or decided we’d get, now, before they’re sold out.

SOLD OUT is the operative term this Holiday Season.  It appears that — on 4 December — Christmas is over — in Retail World.

Costco is typically a good barometer, or marketing thumb, to assess the rate that any commodity is flying off the shelves.  According to the report from Dear Husband (and he goes to this warehouse with instructions from Dear Wife as if he’s on a major reconnaissance mission) —

Bare-Shelves-Biden have been replaced by MAGA-Shelves-Moving-Fast!

The gift baskets (which we never buy) are ALL GONE!

We needed one more string of lighted garland for The Staircase.  Two strands @ 7-feet each, they weren’t going to give that nice swag-effect on the railing.

Dear Husband did thereby find himself on a quick-strike mission today in the local big-box store — to locate one package (I suggested two) of the Multi-Colored Artificial Garland.  I’d wanted to harvest some evergreen branches from the lot-for-sale across from our house; but that nearly unbuildable lot got purchased this past spring.  I don’t poach other people’s foliage, friends, or mates.

The last package of garland was indeed located — at the farthest reach of the back of the store — on a flat-bed cart, in the middle of an aisle.  The tag indicated the sale price:  final.

Dear Husband told me that he grabbed it, quickly.  I was reminded of tales of the criminal seizure of the Last (absolutely hideous) Cabbage Patch Doll at the loading dock of Toys “R” Us in Clifton, New Jersey during December 1982.  (What were people thinking????)

By the way, that retailer is down to 8 stores in the USA.  I rarely bought children’s toys there, so the vanishing of that Legacy Company is no big loss for me!

The Christmas Tree for Larkhaven was purchased, at Home Depot, on the Day After Thanksgiving, which is still a Friday.  With one less shopping week in the USA, however, we all should know that the Panicked Shoppers are oot-and-aboot, in force.

The “peace on earth, goodwill to men” feeling really gets tested this time of year, especially when you’re reaching for the last of whatever that’s on the shelf, and your hand encounters the claws of someone else, who is completely lacking in goodwill, good manners, good taste, goodness!

On the 2nd Costco trip, last week, Dear Husband saw there were actual REAL Christmas trees for sale there.

A group of customers, 5 or 6 of them, stood, amazed, gazing, in front of the Tannenbaum (I am not amazed that Pages does not know that German word).

One woman exclaimed:  “Why, it looks so real!!”  She touched it to try to verify her perception.  “And it feels so real.”

 “It is real,” the Sales Clerk replied, with obvious disgust.

Having the Charlie Brown Christmas come to life, enacting itself before his very eyes, IRL, was not pleasant for that employee!

I don’t know what Costco will be stocking post-Winter Solstice.  It’s too early for Easter merchandise. Keeping the dairy section stocked with eggs has proved immensely successful.  The cheese section is looking a tad bleak, though.  There’s no Comté, or Jarlsberg.  The Western Europeans are obviously keeping their cheeses to themselves, which is perfectly understandable to me.

NO FARMS NO FOOD is the global globalist plague.  Methinks Monterey Jack hasn’t made its way over to Amsterdam or Provence, which would only prove to be another embarrassment from America.  Jack is bland, but so is the PlumbJack estate State Winery.

All play and no work makes Jack a dumb Guv.