Seasonal shopping during a pandemic
Nov. 2nd, 2020 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterThis morning was our day for the early morning biweekly grocery expedition.
As tends to happen in early November, no sooner have we finished with Halloween than the Christmas supplies start to populate store shelves. And this year, we are being urged to shop early, though in rather different ways from what we may be used to.
It was rather sad seeing the amount of leftover Halloween candy at Loblaws. I guess that's down to families being asked to skip trick-or-treating and parties. While individual households no doubt bought some for their immediate bubble, you only need so much for that. And with so many people working from home now, they don't have the option of bringing leftovers to work so their colleagues can help themselves. I guess one good thing about it is that people only buy the candy that they know they and their family like and can eat. So there's less waste, perhaps, and no worries about your kids finding razor blades in apples and cyanide capsules in candy.
I did pick up a few supplies for Christmas baking, though goodness knows to what extent we'll be allowed to share it with others - we may have a very full freezer come January! On the other hand, I've not yet seen any nice crates of mandarins or clementines, only the small bags.
Generally the shelves were fairly well stocked today, although they were still rationing their paper towels. They also had some bamboo-based toilet tissue (not sure if I can call it paper, since they were boasting that it contained no trees - though isn't bamboo a tree of sorts?)
One thing I usually look forward to in November is wandering around craft shows and church bazaars. I guess there won't be any of that this year, but in the interests of supporting local crafts people, I may do some of my gift shopping on sites like this one:
https://ottawaartisans.com/collections/
As tends to happen in early November, no sooner have we finished with Halloween than the Christmas supplies start to populate store shelves. And this year, we are being urged to shop early, though in rather different ways from what we may be used to.
It was rather sad seeing the amount of leftover Halloween candy at Loblaws. I guess that's down to families being asked to skip trick-or-treating and parties. While individual households no doubt bought some for their immediate bubble, you only need so much for that. And with so many people working from home now, they don't have the option of bringing leftovers to work so their colleagues can help themselves. I guess one good thing about it is that people only buy the candy that they know they and their family like and can eat. So there's less waste, perhaps, and no worries about your kids finding razor blades in apples and cyanide capsules in candy.
I did pick up a few supplies for Christmas baking, though goodness knows to what extent we'll be allowed to share it with others - we may have a very full freezer come January! On the other hand, I've not yet seen any nice crates of mandarins or clementines, only the small bags.
Generally the shelves were fairly well stocked today, although they were still rationing their paper towels. They also had some bamboo-based toilet tissue (not sure if I can call it paper, since they were boasting that it contained no trees - though isn't bamboo a tree of sorts?)
One thing I usually look forward to in November is wandering around craft shows and church bazaars. I guess there won't be any of that this year, but in the interests of supporting local crafts people, I may do some of my gift shopping on sites like this one:
https://ottawaartisans.com/collections/
