air jordan dress shoes Christmas in July, August,

Well, we saw it happen again last month-"Christmas in July!" Retailers and merchandisers just can't seem to resist, and who can blame them? If you were in their shoes (even Guccis need folded newsprint tucked inside when the soles wear through), and saw how your bottom-line was bottoming out this Summer, you'd probably call Rent-a-Santa to hire a guy to dance, sweat, and twirl a sign in front of your business too. This year, Kmart and Toys 'R' Us showed their Christmas in July spirit by joining the movement in a big way, and helping us to beat that nasty old holiday rush. For most people, though, it's the rush they get from the rush that brings them out.
While doing my research for this column (yes, I do research, but the only facts I'm interested in are ones I can make fun of), I found out the "fact" that nobody really knows how the celebration of Christmas in July began. Some blame it on Irish tourists who were visiting New South Wales in July of 1980, and, finding themselves surrounded by snow, instinctively began buying each other gifts and drinking hot totties-though not necessarily in that order. These Irish revelers weren't leprechauns, but that didn't prevent local merchants from finding their pot o' gold-and suddenly a solemn religious tradition was born.
Forty years prior, however, Preston Sturges wrote and directed a movie by the same name. It's about a contest-entering fanatic, whose office coworkers play a trick on him by sending him a phony telegram (the precursor to Nigerian spam-scams) telling him he's won a slogan contest and $25,000. So he lavishes his friends and family with presents and proposes to his girlfriend-things you normally only do at Christmas, and when you have money to burn. Well, everybody learns their lessons, and, of course, he gets the girl. She realizes she loves him for himself, and not his pot o' gold, which today would just about pay for Junior's Tai Chi classes. I haven't seen the film, but I'm confident Mr. Sturges knew how to resolve storylines satisfactorily.
Continuing my online research thread, I visited "christmasinjuly" dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, and dot-info. Two of them were simply online real estate someone had invested in, but the other two were clearly patriotic and linked Christmas to the birth of a nation (not a movie directed by Preston Sturges). One of them, in North Carolina, even begins the celebration at 6 PM on July 3, which, by my calendar, would make it Christmas in July Eve. That's when the entire population of 1,000 West Jeffersonians gets together with hundreds of their closest friends and relatives from nearby Wakesboro and Jonesville to wave flags, explode colorful chemicals, listen to music, and show the world how Christmas in July should be observed. Interestingly, this wild-eyed bunch doesn't attempt to lay claim to its genesis.
So you see, the term "Christmas in July" doesn't have clear etymological origins. Any schlub with an agenda could have coined it. My own inside source tells me it has to do with the guy who runs the whole Christmas thing air force one high heels, St. Nick himself-but for vastly different reasons. My source? Peter Cottontail, the Easter Bunny, of course. He tells me that when the Puritans in England banned the celebration of Christmas in 1647, because of its many pagan trappings, there was an outcry from good little street urchins across the land. Father Christmas (as he is still known in Jolly Old England) heard it, and established an underground "Freedom" movement, which (wink-wink) celebrated the birth of some non-descript, but very earth-changing event. The day he chose? July 4th. Tiny stockings were hung over hearths, featuring a star that represented the one in Bethlehem. The red and white stripes stood for the suffering He would endure to purify souls from sin. Remember high heels air jordan women boots, this is all very hush-hush, so don't tell any of our modern-day secular-humanist Puritans-that is, the ACLU, and People for the American Way. If this gets out, we may lose both Christmas and Independence Day celebrations from the public sector as being too religious!
The best solution to all our problems is to celebrate Christmas in July, August, September, Oct-well, you get the idea. Then people will keep spending their stimulus bribes-I mean "packages" all year-round, and when that's gone, they'll continue to emulate the government by racking up debt for their posterity to deal with. The economy will hum like there's no tomorrow-because there won't be. See? Problems solved.
We may think our wants equal our needs. In other words, that we just have to have a certain pair of shoes or gadget to be happy, successful, etc. While this can seem simple when we're talking about basic needs like shelter and food, it can get murky when we're looking at other items. Here's an easy way to really get conscious about determining the difference between a need and want.Weighing In is a technique for cutting through the financial fog that envelops so many overshoppers. Weighing In involves the disciplined recording of purchases-and something more. You also categorize each purchase, choosing from a master list that groups expenses into logical bins: Home, Food, Clothing, Entertainment, Education, and so on. And you assign each purchase a Necessity Score, based on your dispassionate evaluation of how much you need it. (Need, not want.)
This data is entered into the Daily Weigh-In Form, which I introduced last posting. Here's the form again:Let's focus on the concept of necessity.In the fourth column, you assign each purchase a Necessity Score: 0 if the purchase is totally unnecessary, 1/3 if it's not very necessary, 2/3 if it's pretty necessary air jordan dress shoes, and 1 if it's entirely necessary.There is, of course, a certain subjectivity to assigning necessity scores; the decision will depend to some extent on your psychological awareness, even on your existing debt level and your present and future expenses. But here's a rough guide. If you fell and broke your leg during the week, the check to the orthopedist would be entirely necessary; you'd give that a Necessity Score of 1.