Only 353 days to go

So, it's over. Tree down, decorations packed away until next year and everything back to normal.... Or not. Supermarkets seem to be incapable of restocking shelves with 'normal' products because they are still cramming the shelves with cut price 'luxury' mince pies and 'gourmet' Christmas puddings. Why they think that people will want them after Christmas when they didn't want the overpriced, over-processed muck during Christmas is beyond me. But hey... those of us who want potatoes or dog food will need to wait until the shops are 'fully restocked'. Now call me old fashioned, but is having stock that people actually want to buy not what the business model of any shop should be? It's not as if something like Christmas is a last minute thing - it comes at the same time every year and guess what? The shops can make advanced planning for it!
I expect exactly the same at Easter .. mad frenzied shopping with supermarkets bursting to the seams with crazed people pushing 3 fully loaded trolleys to the till - well, come on - the shops are closed for a day... you need to stock up... and then post Easter there'll be nothing on the shelves other than stale hot crossed buns (which have incidentally already been spotted on the shelves), and overpriced simnel cake (does anyone even know what one of them is??).
I don't know why I'm surprised. It's been like this for years and for some reason we just accept that the supermarkets tell us what to buy rather than us buying what we actually want. For example - can you imagine anyone sitting at home with their jar of nescafe and thinking "hmmm... I think I'll get some stale ground coffee, grind it to a fine powder and add it to the instant coffee - it'll taste much better" yet people are paying double the price of normal instant coffee for something which still tastes of instant coffee. My point is this - people have been quite happy with instant coffee for decades. No - it tastes nothing like real coffee, and yes - people would probably like a more realistic taste. But I bet no-one wanted the sweepings off the coffee factory floor to be added to their favourite jar! Oh, and I'll bet that until a couple of years ago no-one ever thought it would be a good idea to shove an orange in the middle of a steamed fruit pudding!
So - into the New Year and remember, the supermarkets only have 353 days to persuade you to buy more over-priced rubbish in the name of Jesus....