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Whltby Free Press, Wednesday, November 13, 1996, Paqe7 Somebody switched seasons on me one afternoon a couple of weeks ago. Walking through a departrnent store, two days before Halloween, Christnmas attacked me. Unprovoked. Right before my very eyes, pumpkins and black cats were pulled off the shelves. Santa, Rudolph and the Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman jumped into the vacant space. Voila! Christmas season had begun. 1 know, I know. My rational mid cari look at the calendar, count the weeks, do the mentai arithrnetic. Between then (two days before Halloween) and that day (December 25) stretch the survival days for merchants. For some, one-third to one-half of a year~s business will be compressed into those eight weeks. One can appreciate that any astute merchandýser will have everything in place before November. In this race, there are no disqualifications for starting too soon. And it is possible to have a slow start. This sounde ridiculous, but there are people, weird, twisted, abnorrnal people, who have started Christmas shopping by now. This weekend, a dernented relative called to say they -- reaning a whole family, I suppose - were completing their shopping. Which means, I suppose, that they will force each other to sit on their own demented hands now for the rest of the shopping season. Or run the risk of starting next year's Christmnas shopping, should they run across the right bargain. It is no wonder then that merchants put the decor in place before Halloween has arrived. The last minute Halloween shoppers - there are such beasts, rve been there - will not be deterred by smiling Santas or kicking Rudolph. Desperation has a blindness ail its own. A few years ago, a movie production rnerged these two seasonal hallrnarks. Halloween and Christrnas are separated by only 54 days. But in both weather and spiritual focus they could not be farther apart. Nevertheless, T/w Nightmare Before Christmas rnanaged to display just the right amount of night terror te the juxtaposition. The movie -and its video version leave me with the sanie feeling I might get ini attending a Reform Party convention.ý A good friend boasts about shopping ail year long just te be on top of the situation. I give you two guesses as to the gender of that fiiend. Christmas preparations have never been this male's long suit. Given the number of last minute maie shoppers I meet every year, it is a stereotype that has earned its reputation. This could the David Cronenberg hit of the decade: Cliistmas Eue Zombies. Incidentaily, it is in those last-days-before..hrismas shopping orgies that the season cornes around'fulI circle. It is thony two, three days before the day of days, when: LoI And Behold! Those Santas and Sleighs and Rudolphs and Reindeor that angored us so much when they pushed the Jack O'Lantern off the shelf; now ites their turn. Down they corne: the frees, the Santas, the Reindeer, ail the marks of that wondrous season. -Another marketing season has begun. Again, there are no penalties for a fast start. But no longer are sterekeepors allowed time te regroup. No, sir. They"ll be open again on Boxing Day, and there won't be a trace of Christmas left. The Easter Bonnets, or the equivaient in this hatless society, will be offered where the day before Fathers battled over tattered remnants. We're now on the brink of the Santa Claus Parade season. No longer do we have te sit through bone-searing Decernber cold te watch the elves and playland characters play. MNow %"ariej - h% nui aae ri gle HCKING APPLREOS AR FJRMIILC<C. 1900 Oneof he ineet fruit farms in Whitby was the Jerry Lick farm where the Sunnycrest Nursing Home is now on Dundas Street East. The apples are being packed in bairrels, wooden boxes and bushel baskets. The boxes are labeled with the namne of Elmer Lick, Jeremiah's son, who had a house adjacent to bis father's.p WhitbY Archive. photo 10 YEARS AGO from the Wednesday, November 12, 1986 edition of the 0 il i 1011 L1 85 YEARS AGO from the Thursday, November 9, 1961 edition of the WBITY WEECKLy NEWS Building permits valued at $608,000 were issued from January to October, 1961., The nomination meeting for the muii a él ci n llb hed nt eto .h ll n November 23. m ncp l ee to s wl e h l n t e t w al o The Whitby Rotary Club is holding a 'Mile of Coins" driv*e. A plebiscite on flouridation of Whitby's water system will b. held on Deoember 4. 0 William Ledingham of Myrtle Station bas canoelled. his subscription to The Chronicle 0 because the Paper said ho was voilating the licence laws. 0 A meeting will b. held at the town hall to organize a7 choral club for Whitby. * Mathias W. Collins is selling boots and shoos at his store for 50 cents to one dollar a pair. 0 Miss Eleanor M Ladd of Bufflo gave a lecture on the poetry of Robert Browning at the 100 MUAS AGO i'the FridaY, November 13, 1896 edition of the Ontarlo Ladies' College. 1L1 la m Time to regroup MmMmMMý I 1 Llr. j. v. iRuddy General Hospital Board wants to change its name to Whitby*General Hospital. Town Council revised a plan for subsidized housing in the Bluegrasa Meadows. A visiting Ministry 0f Education officiai Was shocked to see s0 many portables at Dr. Robert Thornton Public School. Bertha Atkinson, a resident offSwmyrest Nursing Home, received a lifetime achievemnent