Christmas 2012 - Did You Notice Too?

Ever since I was a kid there were those stylised Pathe' News television images that peeled off the calendar days, that then blew away in a surreal winter wind and set out the number of remaining the shopping days to Christmas - do you remember?

Shopping Days To Christmas..............

And sometimes,probably set up just to spice up a slow news day or fill up an unwanted programme content space, there was that rather tongue in cheek announcement several long months out from the 25th of December that there were only "117 more shopping days to Christmas".

And sometimes there was the rather sad image of the poor chap who had forgotten to plan his his nearest and dearest gift shopping and was paying through the nose shopping for last minute Christmas gifts, enduring retail hell by navigating the crazed gift shopping crowds late on Christmas eve.

It was always so important to make sure that Christmas shopping was carefully planned so that no one got forgotten and that no unforeseen events interupted the carefully dedicated retail expeditions to designed to deliver the "Just what I always wanted" gift opening moment come Christmas morning..........

During December of 2012 I saw no calendar pages or dates being blown away by a surreal, filmic breeze.

But I did notice - without the similarly surreal tinkling of the postman's bicycle bell or the deep bellow of the cargo ship's fog horn - quite a large number of reminders that there was still enough 'International Shipping Time' for those carefully chosen Christmas gift deliveries.

“For the times they are a changin” - Did you notice too?