Scrooge

We were at Bordine's Nursery in Rochester Hills (http://www.bordines.com/ ).
They had a one day Christmas Shop special sale to celebrate - what else? - the opening of their Christmas Shop for the season of Christmas, 2013.

Of course, there were many tree decorated in many styles.

We walked through a Christmas forest of trees festooned with lights only, thinking what a special and wonderful enchanted forest. This feeling lasted about 6 seconds until we were bumped into by a seasonal part-timer who had not learned the rules of the road, and insisted on bearing left.
Perhaps he came from the UK.

We entered the Christmas Shop and went about looking at every display.

Like Corbusier's evil twin once said, "More is less... so we need even More!"
One could not see the trees for the decorations. Each tree had a sign identifying its theme, such as "Christmas Carol Tree" (musical instrument ornaments... I called it "Horns of a Dilemma"), "Harvest Tree" (colors of Autumn... I called it "Rust Belt Holidaze"), and "Santa Tree" (Santa Claus... I called it "St. Nick").

I commenced a carping, kvetching critique of this ethos of Christmas, comparing it to the famous tale of "The Ornament That Broke The Christmas Tree's Trunk", and other homely observations.

She-who-must-be-obeyed indicated that I should lighten up a bit, it being Christmas-a-two-month-off-yet and all that.
So I lightened up.

I began to see the bright side of consumerism.

Unfortunately, within 10 minutes I came to a tree devoted to rodent ornaments, specifically Mus Domesticus, the common mouse; there were various mice ornaments all over it. Most were rather large, being about 5 to 8 inches in stature. I had no idea! So many mouse figures and toys!
(Where were they when I really needed mouse tchotchkes and memorabilia about 3 months ago, I thought to myself ?!)

I forced myself even to enjoy this, although some of the dolls and puppets of the mice did bear a nasty resemblance to those extremely unfortunate dog and cat angel ornaments of about 5 to 6 years ago. I'm sure you remember: they were essentially wings with a cone-shaped angel body, and dog and cat head frankensteined on top.
I am not making this up. My brother sold some in his store at the time.
When I first saw one, I gasped - Asperger-like  - "O, Anubis!"  Then I wondered aloud if the cat goddes Bast approved of being mixed in with Christmas, instead of the old fashioned Heb Sed or Horus festivals of Ancient Egypt.
My brother frowned a bit at the time, but those ornaments sold like hot cakes.
(I was also the guy whom the head of Beatrice Foods gave a prototype of Pringles to, and said that they'd never sell.)

I was doing fine with the mouse tree. Fine, that is, until I saw the theme sign; it read "Merry Christ-Mouse!"

I frowned a bit. I decided that it was a good deal of work getting ready for the retail holiday season, and the store people had to let off a little steam with a little blasphemy. However, Christmas is not the source of the madness of the season; we are... and we should not forget it.

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