Tesco and Toothpaste

October 18, 2010

Today I stopped into Tesco to buy a vacuum cleaner. Or, as they say here, a hoover. Tesco is nearly the only store in Ireland that is anything like Walmart: high, industrial ceilings, an own-store brand, and a whole range of products from hoovers to gym equipment to pasta sauce. It's blissful. In a disgustingly convenient Walmart type way.

But today, October 18th, I walked into Tesco. And saw this:


Christmas. Before Halloween. Or rather, right alongside Halloween.

Irish Christmas typically starts well before Christmas colored M&M's hit the shelves in America, I think mostly because there isn't a Thanksgiving to break up the space between.

But since the weather typically skips fall and heads right into winter, I figure (along with all those Irish people) why not start getting into the Christmas spirit early?

What about you? How early is too early to start thinking about Christmas? If you had no Thanksgiving would you start decking the halls November 1st?

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And in other news, today marked the first time I have bought toothpaste in Ireland. For the past two years, I've stocked up on toothpaste at Walmart in Waterville, Maine, and lugged it back to Ireland. Along with a whole lot of other things (mac and cheese, brownie mix, all my makeup and clothes from the Banana Republic outlet down the I-95).

So today I bought toothpaste in Ireland. I suppose it's another sign that I really do live here!