In the bizarre world of holiday shopping, there is the infamous “Black Friday.” Soon after arrives “Cyber Monday.” Eventually the “Day After Christmas,” is upon us. But I think retailers are still missing the majority of the shopping population with these minor sales events.

What about “Freak Out Friday?” That day when you realize that you are turning the calendar page to December and you haven’t purchased one gift, decorated nary a bough nor baked a single Snickerdoodle? You can hear the collective scream of panic in every household in America. They say it’s one of the few sounds heard from space.

And don’t tell me you’ve never heard of “At Least Twice Thursday?” That’s the day where you go to the same store you’ve been at least twice using twice as much gas to scour the same items in the same aisles only to find nothing new but you pay double the original price because you’ve waited so long. I usually end this day with 2 aspirins and a double shot of eggnog.

And no where do I see “Waste a Whole Sunday Afternoon Perusing Outdated Catalogs” day advertised. This is the weekend in which I will leaf through the 6 foot high stack of catalogs in my bedroom wondering why I’ve dog-eared page 112 in Hammacher Schlemmer in July when I vowed to do this early. Since I will never reconstruct who was supposed to receive the cashmere earmuffs with the LED lit covers or the electric granita maker, I will abandon the exercise after 4 hours and then mourn those lost minutes when I could have been working on The World’s Largest Wall Crossword Puzzle.

Neimen Marcus should hold a Midnight Madness sale on “What Were you Thinking?” Wednesday. This is that self-deluding day when we attempt outlandish holiday crafts knowing full well we have no time, talent or enough glue sticks for even a fraction of the homespun activities we have planned. I like to pretend to stamp the homemade wrapping paper from raw pulp that I’ll never make, string popcorn garland from the corn I’ve never harvested from the non-existent window box, and not decorate the Gingerbread house that is so far from being a “house” that the building inspector has already condemned it to a dilapidated bread box and evicted the Lollypop Kids. To bring it up to confectionary code at this point would require enough royal icing to frost the collective wedding cakes of the Republican presidential candidates. So at 11:45 at night when all of this has failed miserably into a tear-stained moan of frustrated remorse cried to the tune of “Blue Christmas,” I will eventually find myself at an over-priced department store buying a Duraflame log, white pine scented pillar candles and a can of spray snow.

Shockingly, no one has figured out how to cater to these holiday shopping habits.

So unless a traveling salesman stops by bearing squirrel-proof bird feeders and monogrammed weather thermometers, I’ll see you all at the Magic shop on “Too Late Tuesday.”

Because a magic wand and sleight of hand are the only things that can help me get my shopping done on time and under budget.

©2007 Tracey Henry

Divamail me some holiday greetings! Divamail@SuburbanDiva.com.