Bah Humbug

I went shopping with my boy.
I have to get my Christmas shopping organised early on account of going to the UK halfway through December, and going to San Fransisco at the beginning of it. So it is a little unreasonable of me to be quite so pissed off with all the premature ho-ho-ho.
But I am.

Who, outside of the back streets of Pompey, needs a blow up Father Christmas with fake snow blowing around inside some see-through bits?
Why do they have to pump napalm-strength synthetic cinnamon-smell around stores?
Who needs Christmas songs in November?
Frankly, the familiar and welcoming smells, sounds and tinsel of Christmas seem false and just plain tired in the November rain.

In town, the place was hopping.
A Clinique cosmetics representative popped up and accosted people in the department store, but she seemed more like a Tupperware lady, a Tupperware lady with a lab-coat style dress on, to make us associate the product with scientists. We did that thing that rugby players do to avoid someone getting the ball from them, we swerved round her.

Outside in the mall, horrified faces prefaced more swerving; as I was about to put my foot down, a woman screwed her face up and pointed, blood on the floor. A boy of about twelve was being shuffled to one side, blood streaming from....somewhere around his head, who could see, maybe a nosebleed, maybe he fell. There was a lot of blood. As we walked, blue uniforms with medical cases ran towards us, around us, doing the rugby thing.

My trusty standby stores let me down. No inspiration but at least Old Navy has a toilet.

Later, outside Shoppers Drug Mart, an Indian guy, partly dressed as Santa Claus, huddled into the doorway, collecting money for the Sally Ann. He was skinny. This REALLY gets tedious. Between now and Christmas, you have to ignore this guy or some other, wearing the red and fur and ringing a bell every time you go to the shop, and it's one of those local stores I go to several times a week.
I don't mind Santa being Asian, not at all, but skinny, nope, that's not working for me. And the Sally Ann Santas get so un-festive by the end. And this guy was huddling already.

Call me Ebeneezer, but I can almost hear those ghostly chains a-clanking.