Holiday Sale

For what it's worth, I would like everyone to know that after three Christmas movies, four batches of cookies, a Tacky Lights tour, and a Cookie Party complete with roaring fire, I am feeling much more Holly Jolly and much less Bah Humbug.

Now, we all know about the Christmas Creep. No not your skeevy uncle after too much eggnog, but the insidious crawl of holiday-centric commercialism ever earlier in the year to the point that I saw red, green, and silver Hershey kisses available around Halloween. It's a familiar, if infuriating phenomenon, and I'm waiting for the good belly laugh when we celebrate Labor Day with 50% off all Santa merchandise.

But this is a new one for me.

I opened my Yahoo email account this morning to see an email from Ann Taylor Loft (love!) advertising a sale. It makes sense, as it's two days before Christmas, and the parking lot around Fair Oaks Mall was crammed yesterday with crawling cars filled with panicked people. I wasn't among their numbers, but I could see it from I-66. God bless online shopping. And I know the economy sucks and retailers have been busting their humps, doing just about anything to get people to at least look at their wares.

Anyhoo. I was all ready to delete yet another sale ad until my eyes caught the subject line.

(Note that it's currently December 23.)

"Ann Taylor Loft After Holiday Sale Starts Today!"

Amazing. I knew they were capable of great work-appropriate clothes. (I'm wearing a sweater of theirs right now.) I did not realize they were capable of bending the laws of space and time.

Good show, Ann Taylor Loft! I humble myself before your scientific prowess. Somebody get NASA on the phone!