There were hot cross buns

in the other supermarket yesterday. Middle Cat reported this fact to me when she delivered some things for the Senior Cat from the hardware store.
Mostly we support the family owned independent supermarket. They will soon have their buns out too but they have the courtesy to wait until the twelve days of Christmas are actually over!
Christmas seems to begin in August. Easter begins after Christmas. There is "Halloween". Then there is "Mother's Day" and "Father's Day". There appear to be numerous other events which we are told require the expenditure of money.
A "sale" no longer excites me - if it ever did. There seem to be constant "sales". I know too much about them now.
I know someone who used to run a local "dress shop". It was a small but popular shop which sold the sort of thing that people actually wore on an everyday basis. Most of the clothing was brought in with that very thing in mind. If you wanted sensible clothing to wear to work or to do the supermarket run on Saturday that is where you went. Unfortunately it had to shift location when major changes were made to the shopping centre. The owner of the centre thought it was not sufficiently "upmarket" for his new look. He did not consider what people actually wanted.
But, I got to know the woman who ran it. She is a lively, intelligent Greek woman now retired. The shop was adjacent to the supermarket and I would sometimes "mind the shop" for a few minutes as she dashed upstairs or off to the bank". (She worked alone and the centre rules said the shop could not be closed.)  On the very rare occasions I needed to buy something I would tell her what I needed and she would tell me, "Not yet."
I knew to wait - and why. She would show me new stock.
"Look at these. The boss paid $5 for these."
The price on the label would be $95 or even $105. When they were "on sale" they might be $65 or $70. Once in a while they might be even lower than that. And I would get "staff discount" for minding the shop. 
"The boss" had met me and approved my "shop minding". She was demanding and of uncertain temper. She claimed constant poverty. I very much doubt she had any idea of how much her employee had told me about the "mark up" business.
But it taught me to not get excited by "sales" and to wait for them. Yes, I know about "overheads" and the expense of employing people - especially those in bricks and mortar shops. I do not, for a moment, think that being in that sort of business would be easy. It has, in many ways, to be harder than selling food. We need to eat. People buy food every day. They do not buy clothing every day. But we do not need to buy those hot cross buns early. We do not need to buy them at all. They are actually intended for just one day of the year.
I will not be buying hot cross buns.