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Opinion: Calendar turns and whole new retail season begins

With Halloween set to go today, we all know what that means about tomorrow. There’ll be a massive markdown on the leftover candy corn, the Twizzlers, the Swedish Berries, the Tootsie Rolls, the Gummy Bears and the Kraft Caramels.
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With Halloween set to go today, we all know what that means about tomorrow.

There’ll be a massive markdown on the leftover candy corn, the Twizzlers, the Swedish Berries, the Tootsie Rolls, the Gummy Bears and the Kraft Caramels. This gives me no end of glee, since I am both a cheapskate and a sucker for all manner of Halloween candy, even if it’s been sitting on the store shelves since September.

I may have trouble sleeping tonight.

Then there’s this: the second the Halloween treats have been scooped up, out will come the candy cane kisses, the chocolate bark, the red and green gumdrops, the peppermint drops, the Christmas tree nougats and the marshmallow Santas.

And that’s just the candy.

The shops will also be pulling out a zillion other Yuletide items that have been stashed who-knows-where while they’ve waited for the first of November. You know. The ornaments. The tree toppers. The wrapping paper. The Santa hats and the gift tags and the Christmas cards and the wreaths and the ribbons and the candles.

Goodbye, plastic Jack-o-Lanterns. Hello, ugly sweaters.

Gotta love it.

Yep, I’d be among the first to agree that Christmas has no place on the store shelves in August. But tomorrow? Heck, sounds like good timing to me.

“Can we get rid of that pumpkin?” I will say to the husband first thing tomorrow. “We need to put out the reindeer.”

“Isn’t it a bit early?” he will say, sipping the first of his coffee.

“No,” I will reply. “Let’s toss the pumpkin in the compost and pull out the flashing reindeer.”

We won’t be the only ones.

All over the neighbourhood, folks will be ripping away the faux cobwebs and taking down the tombstones. They’ll be disassembling the moaning mummies and the hanging bats and the waving ghostly sheets that have been designed to scare the living daylights out of tiny trick-or-treaters.

Then they’ll get in the spirit of Christmas.

One occasion follows another, and never more so than right now.

In the coming days, the lights will be hung, the swags will go up and the red pillar candles will glow.

Gonna start with the season in the next little while, but first, I’ll be out buying Twizzlers.