All that Glitters...

I just love the Holiday Catalog Season. Every day for a month my mailbox is jammed packed with shiny-paged offers from every retailer in North America. It’s a beautiful thing.

One benefit is it makes the bills look insignificant in comparison. They practically get lost in all that bulk. With only one or two flimsy Visa payment reminders, I feel as if my credit lines expand, stretching to Lands’ End, or Bed Bath and Beyond, or even The Territory Ahead—places where “exceptional gifts” await.

It takes the kids two or three trips to bring in the mail. On a really heavy day, they sometimes form a human chain to ferry the catalogs from mailbox to kitchen counter. They don’t mind. They appreciate fine merchandising too.

Sometimes they get to the catalogs before I do, and thoughtfully circle items they think will complete their happiness. I’m always interested to see what captures their interest. For example, if it’s circled in red crayon, then I know my youngest has been making a list and checking it twice.

The Pier 1 catalog had red circles on almost every page of holiday décor. Gosh, I didn’t know we were low on that stuff. When you have a “Christmas Closet” like I do, you just assume you are set for life on jolly snowmen and joyous angels. Apparently not.

The red crayon suggested a towering tabletop blue and gold sequined tree presparkled for my decorating convenience. Only $60. Although the tree looked like something out of the girls’ dress-up box or West Hollywood—take your pick--I was taken with the “pre-decorated” concept.

Think of the hours saved if my holiday décor was already done. If we didn’t have to take every little Hallmark classic car ornament out of its little box and bubble wrap and carefully hang it on the tree and then talk about why the ‘57 Corvette is so much better than the ’58, I could go hole up somewhere with a nice game of solitaire.

So that’s how I ended up almost dialing the 1-800 number when I realized the towering sequin tree was the exact size of my vacuum, which also resides in the Christmas Closet. There wasn’t room for both. Much as I’d like to permanently replace the vacuum with the Sequin Tree, I choked.

Two pages later, a towering white feather tree was circled. What was this, a chance at redemption?

Described as a “wisp of feathers and glitter,” it was even taller than the sequin tree. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting kid who circled it so carefully, they lost me at “glitter.”

I hate glitter. Glitter should come with a warning. They should have stages of glitter--like cancer. Once you have glitter in your house, you can never really get rid of it. You are always recovering, but never truly glitter-free again.

I don’t know why, but even the hint of glitter ruined the whole Holiday Catalog Season for me. At least there’s still the Internet.