Ed Icionsub

This weekend is when everyone goes to the grocery store and buys everything they need for their big Thanksgiving dinner.Even people who normally do not shop weekly for groceries will be in the stores shopping for the holiday. You will not catch me in the grocery today – I will wait until Tuesday to go buy my turkey and fixings.

It will be a big run on fresh and frozen turkeys, but also a run on prime rib, standing rib roasts, and Honeybaked hams. Not everyone likes turkey and depending upon where you live and what your family traditions might be, you could be serving a totally non turkey based meal this Thursday.

When I lived in San Francisco, the Thanksgiving focus was on Dungeness Crab and fresh oysters. November is the start of Dungeness Crab season and everyone grabs up the first catches of the year. Dungeness Crab season always begins mid-November and runs until June. But, the reality is that 80 percent of the Dungeness Crab is brought in by the end of December. So, there is always this Thanksgiving rush to get the biggest, sweetest, freshest crabs. Makes my mouth water just thinking about those.

Today we honor our military by observing Veterans Day. It was formerly known as “Armistice Day,” and is a federal holiday, observed every year on November 11.

The company wants to do something for the holidays beyond rewarding our own employees and customers. Although I really don’t want to start thinking about Christmas this early, if we order something like Promotional Products for Christmas gifts or goodie bags, this is the right time to start thinking about what we want to order and how many we will need.

My company is really big on putting their name on everything. They order custom printed pens and pencils for the stock room, and because we do a lot of trade shows, they order a lot of other items for giveaways. We search out the unusual things and like to give away items that generate a certain amount of buzz. Once other vendors or exhibitors see what we are giving away they realize that people are coming to our booth just to get our special giveaways. And it is always good to get in front of potential customers first.

We are thinking about sending some care packages oversees to our troops and including custom stuffed animals. Except this time, instead of printing our company name on the items, we want to print something patriotic. That way, when the soldiers get the stuffed animals and give them away to the little kids in Afghanistan and the other countries where they are stationed, the kids will have not only a toy but something with a message about how great America is, to help reinforce our message about why our troops are over there.

About this time of year the stores are stocking up on Halloween candies and some of the big box retail stores that sit empty get turned into haunted houses and costume stores. I don’t like the commercially packaged Halloween costumes. I’d rather go to http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ and order something that can do double duty. I can get dressed up as Dr. Frankenstein on Halloween, and then I can wear the same scrubs around the house for the rest of the year.

I had that idea a couple of years ago when we had an office party on Halloween. It fell on a Friday and we always enjoyed Casual Fridays, so it was not that big of a deal to have a costume party at the office, complete with decorations, free food and even lots of candy.

I had the idea to play a doctor and bought a real lab coat, a toy stethoscope, and then I smeared red tempura paint all over the front to look like blood. The only problem with that plan is that the paint did not wash out. I though that paint was water soluble and the same things kids used at school. So I was totally surprised to find out that the pain stains white things and no matter how many times you wash it, there will always be red splotches on your clothes. I had to toss the whole thing away.

This year I’m going to buy green scrubs and splurge on the fake blood that is sold in the costume stores so I can still smear red stuff all over the front of me. But this time I want the red to wash out after Halloween.

We are enjoying the day off from work, celebrating Labor Day. Things are not actually going as planned, but it is still better to have a day off and be with family than to be slaving away in the office. We had hoped to spend one last good day at the lake and have a barbecue tonight. But the weather turned cold and rainy yesterday. So we are indoors today and hope we have a few nice weekends in September to make up for it.