Holidays and more....

Sitting here wondering where once again a year has gone. It feels like we were just celebrating last year's holiday season, and once again we are upon another one. I do have one gripe about stores. It seems every year they get earlier and earlier putting out Christmas decorations, so long before the holiday, that you are almost tired of looking at it by the time Christmas is here. This year seems to have been the worst. They had Halloween stuff out weeks and weeks before October it seems. Then the day or two before Halloween, they had shelves and shelves of Christmas decorations and it is just like they skipped Thanksgiving, and here Christmas stuff is out 2 and a half months before it should be. I know due to the economy the retail business is probably trying to help shoppers and themselves by making the "buying" season longer. Since Wal Mart did away with layaway, along with K-Mart and Target that makes it more difficult because people can no longer get things early, put them in layaway and pay them out. Now with many over the max on their credit cards, most of us surely do not need another mound of credit card debt after the holidays. What also gripes me is as horrible as credit is now for many people, we tend to still get credit card offers in the mail. Many of them are also full of very expensive fees, that are so far hidden in the fine print, no one can find them. Then when a bill arrives and is 40 dollars or more higher than what it should be, you can see you have been scammed with either fees, or higher interest rates. I am going through my own mind getting ready to write my annual Christmas Letter to family and friends. It has been not a really great year for many reasons, most of it for us health reason, between Jim and myself. We can hope 2010 brings us comfort, answers, and hopefully peace, for us and the world.