Dear LPG,

If LPG have done as I requested, although this has been posted today, I will have written this article exactly one year ago. 

One year ago, today (or yesterday in reality for me) , I spent the day at my son’s house in Kent looking after my two-year-old grandson.  The weather had become noticeably colder than it had been for quite some time and the long hot summer had made us all think that it was going to be warm forever.

I make a visit every week, and my charge and I went for a walk to the local shopping centre on that day only to find that the lamp post Christmas decorations were all installed, and ready to go, while all the Halloween memorabilia had made way for Christmas trees and toys which were on sale in the local Wilko, in spite of the fact that Halloween 2018 had not yet happened. 

I know that this came to my notice while I was in the depths of Kent, but I will return home tomorrow and update my message if Lewisham’s high street lights are not showing signs of Christmas on my return.  (I am now back home, and the Christmas lights are up and ready for action here too.)

I understand that we need to prepare for these holidays in advance, but I thought that they were there to focus our attention during the year, and I find it interesting that we are now so organised as a nation that we are preparing so far in advance that we are skipping some commemorations out.  It occurred to me that there were fewer shops inviting the sale of fireworks this year (I mean last year – 2018 – when I wrote this down).

I cannot help but think that the reality is that the shops want us to spend as long a time as possible preparing for Christmas and have skipped bonfire night because there is a limited amount of money that they can make from this celebration.

And now that the year has passed and the days are again getting shorter, it will be interesting to see if the Christmas of 2019 has been hinted at in our shops yet.

WS. Downham.