Tuesday, January 05, 2010

The world's gone to pot

Today is the 12th Day of Christmas - the last day for decorations to be taken down, as Christmas celebrations traditionally end on Twelfth Night. So I guess, technically, in England it's still Christmas.

In Greece, the holiday season is going strong, culminating in the Feast of the Epiphany on 6th January.

In Russia, most people haven't even celebrated Christmas, as the Russian Orthodox church still uses the Julian calendar, which has Christmas falling on 7th January.

In Spain, kids are waiting to open their Christmas presents tomorrow, during the Fiesta de Los Reyes Magos.

The Met Office is predicting snow all over the UK (up to 15 cm in places like Manchester and Ceredigion, Wales).

Meanwhile....


...supermarkets across the UK are selling Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. You may be blissfully unawares, but it's only 88 days to Easter - that's a fact. If you don't start buying your chocolate eggs now, you may soon run out of time and have to endure (shock, horror) a chocolate-less Easter.

In case you think this is too weird to be true, I have photographic proof for you. Yes, I bought Easter chocolate on 5th January. Unbelievable but true.


In my defence, it was for a noble cause (i.e. blogging) - and I managed to resist the temptation of the buy-one-get-one-free packs of freshly baked hot cross buns.

Those Cadbury's Dairy Milk Caramel Bunnies are actually rather nice. Just saying.

14 comments:

Puss-in-Boots said...

Hells bells! That is early for Easter stuff. Our supermarkets are still selling off sale price Christmas chocs and decorations.

Margarita said...

I concur. I'm not expecting to see mass Easter hysteria before St. Valentine's.

This is crazy!

Tinsie said...

Crazy is the word for it. Or indeed hell's bells ;-)

As far as the shops are concerned, we have 3 seasons: Christmas, Easter and summer - summer being the shortest one. How long, I wonder, before the three merge and we have 365 days of ChristmasEasterSummer?

Betty Carlson said...

It sounds worse than in the States, honestly! The UK seems very ahead of the game on every holiday.

I have a friend who lives in G.B. who was taking his tree down over the (last) weekend, but maybe he didn't know about the 12 days of Christmas tradition!

Gattina said...

Not surprising with the easter eggs, lol ! I suggest they put everything together then we can choose.
In Italy the kids get their gifts also on Jan 6th and a witch brings them the Befana. But I suppose that meanwhile they also switched over to Christmas.
In Belgium it ends today with the Kings feast (La fĂȘte des rois. The use is to eat a cake with a little figure in it and who gets it gets also a crown and is the "King" !

Carlos Lorenzo said...

Easter is coming, only 87 days away and counting. Nice post ;)

palmtreefanatic said...

interesting! I have purchased so much "after Christmas" sale chocolate I will be set till Easter comes;)
lol!!!
Its amazing how early the stores get the next Holidays going the same happens here!

Tinsie said...

@ Betty: Oh I'm sure she did, there's a song and everything ;-)

You don't have to take your decorations down on the Twelfth Day, you just shouldn't leave them on past it. If you started putting decorations up in late November, then you probably can't wait to take them down once Christmas is over.

@ Gattina: Your Kings' Feast sounds like the Spanish one. FĂȘte des Rois = Fiesta de Los Reyes Magos.

I like your idea of having everything together in the shops, but I like the idea of having proper seasons even better ;-)

@ Carlos: 87 already? We better hurry!!

@ Palmtreefanatic: I know what you mean - Christmas chocolate is on sale here too, but so is Easter chocolate at the moment. I guess it's an example of competition bringing prices down. Or perhaps the world really has gone to pot.

Maria Verivaki said...

are those creme eggs not available all year round? i thought they were eaten all the time in the uk, not just easter (i used to love them when i was a kid)

Tinsie said...

They're primarily an Easter thing - they all but disappear at the end of spring. They're kind of like chocolate oranges: in theory they are year-round, but they're associated with Christmas and very hard to come by at other times of the year.

I wouldn't be surprised if I saw creme eggs sold loose, like they usually are, but to see packs of them sold alongside chocolate bunnies and mini eggs just screams "Easter".

Karen said...

I need to go take a picture of the Valentine's chocolate, which is displayed right next to the reduced-for-quick-sale Christmas chocolate.

Tinsie said...

Valentine's chocolate I can almost understand (although who buys their Valentine's chocolate more than a month in advance?) but -- Easter 2.5 months early? That's far too keen.

Karen said...

I agree. I can't help but think, "Jesus was just BORN for Pete's sake!"

Tinsie said...

It appears supermarket boses think this is a minor detail...