Eventually, Christmas catalogs will show up in June

The Christmas shopping gods have not been smiling on me this year. Of course, since I don't have a huge family, it's not like I'm buying for 40 people, but still...I started my online shopping, catalog-calling, and mall-visiting right after Thanksgiving, as I always do. I should have figured something would go wrong this year, though, when the catalogs started arriving before Halloween. (Every year it gets earlier.)

And that's when the denials and qualifications started coming in. Want a hat and gloves for a little boy? In red? Whoever heard of such a thing! You would have thought I was searching for, I don't know, a life size statue of a penguin or something. The little red hat and gloves took several stores' worth of searching to unearth. Want a tie for another little boy? That's backordered until February. Here's your Christmas present, kid -- oh, and happy Valentine's Day!

Don't even get me started on the kids' fancy holiday outfits. These, you must buy in August, if you expect to find your child's size in stock. It's the same phenomenon I've noticed with kids' bathing suits -- if you shop for those much later than May, you're shit out of luck.

Now I need to find a whistling tea kettle for my mom, which I'm expecting to find at Kohl's, but still, you never know. I'll probably go in there this week and find nothing but tumbleweeds and a couple of broken ornaments on the floor, like in Cindy Lou Who's house after the Grinch stole everything.

Photo credit: "Christmas Shopping" by Lisa Kibble (This woman's artwork is really cool -- check it out!)