May my daughter not see this. It is mid-September. By my count, at least three months from the holidays. Yet, there is a study out from CreditCards.com that says 14 percent of consumers have already started Christmas shopping. Yes, that means nearly 32 million Americans are buying gifts \u2026 in SEPTEMBER!!! <\/p>\n
I\u2019m aghast. For a couple of reasons. First, it\u2019s still technically summer. And I haven\u2019t finished Christmas shopping \u2026 from last year. <\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s my real concern: the damage it could do to my household. Once upon a time, my daughter was only exposed to toys that advertisers could sneak into commercials she didn\u2019t skip on DVR. Or maybe a catalog that arrived in the mail. Or a toy she saw at a friend\u2019s house. It was limited. Controlled. Filtered. Restrained. <\/p>\n
But now she\u2019s almost 10, wired into the world and incredibly capable of searching online for toys like some kind of high tech bloodhound. With that power at her fingertips, I can\u2019t afford (financially or from a mental sanity standpoint) the wave of requests that could begin this far out.
\n<\/p>\n
If she learns that millions of Americans are already acting on Christmas wish lists, I\u2019ll be doomed. I\u2019ll never hear the end of it. That child will ramp up her holiday team \u2014 she has two mystery shoppers, an adviser and a toy tester on retainer \u2014 and I will spend the next three months discussing the finer points of Playmobil snowmobiles or why she should get an iPod that lets her text.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have one for safety, dad. What if I\u2019m ever attacked by a Sasquatch. Do you really want your only daughter to become a Sasquatch snack because you wouldn\u2019t buy her an iPod? Speaking of which \u2026 I\u2019ve heard the iWatch has an app that repels them.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not ready. I\u2019m not prepared for the mental trauma \u2014 the avalanche of requests. Lists will litter my desk at home. They\u2019ll be taped to my computer. I\u2019ll be shown YouTube videos of happy kids playing with this or launching that. \u201cLook at the joy on their faces,\u201d she\u2019ll say. \u201cDon\u2019t you want your ONLY daughter to experience such \u2018joy\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
And she\u2019ll smile. A smile with lots of teeth. One of them will sparkle, like in the movies. I\u2019ll think it\u2019s cute, but I\u2019ll also think she has mastered some mind trick or just robbed a bank. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s only September, people. The pumpkin spice lattes are only now starting to show up. The weather here in Florida can still melt the elastic in your underwear. There are still skid marks on my credit card from last Christmas.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s early \u2014 far too early to start unleashing the gift list avalanche. So, take a break America. Let those credit cards rest, at least until October. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May my daughter not see this. It is mid-September. By my count, at least three months from the holidays. Yet, there is a study out from CreditCards.com that says 14 percent of consumers have already started Christmas shopping. Yes, that means nearly 32 million Americans are buying gifts \u2026 in SEPTEMBER!!! I\u2019m aghast. For a couple of reasons. First, it\u2019s still technically summer. And I haven\u2019t finished Christmas shopping \u2026 from last year. Then there\u2019s my real concern: the damage it could do to my household. Once upon a time, my daughter was only exposed to toys that advertisers could sneak into commercials she didn\u2019t skip on DVR. Or maybe a catalog that arrived in the mail. Or a toy she saw at a friend\u2019s house. It was limited. Controlled. Filtered. Restrained. But now she\u2019s almost 10, wired into the world and incredibly capable of searching online for toys like some kind of high tech bloodhound. With that power at her fingertips, I can\u2019t afford (financially or from a mental sanity standpoint) the wave of requests that could begin this far out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,556,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-nutshells","category-holidays","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1349,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions\/1349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}