Hi Everyone,

It’s Edward Shepard writing for Don this week. Sadly, he was abducted by little grey aliens on Wednesday. He won’t be back until they get tired of hearing about how superior the National League supposedly is to the American League.

We began adding holiday flair to Smalldog.com this week. I have to admit, it seems early for this. I’d prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving (at least). We all know that retailers are pushing the Christmas season earlier and earlier. A little holiday magic is lost when “Silver Bells” is playing while you’re shopping for Halloween candy. I even read that some Cracker Barrel restaurants already had complete Christmas displays set up at the end of August. That’s absurd! You can still swim in Lake Champlain in August!

While we don’t relish being part of the holiday magic-diluting trend, and we’ve resisted it in the past, this year we recognized that most other businesses in our industry had posted their holiday sales message by 10/31. That’s partly because people really are already looking for holiday and pre-holiday special offers. In this shaky economy, people are planning ahead for their big (and small) purchases. We’re hearing about this on a daily basis.

We’ve posted our Pre-Holiday Sales Event page here. After the 24th, that page will become our main holiday sales page. We’ll keep it updated with the most popular items for sale on Smalldog.com, new special offers, and gift suggestions. Even better, we’re going to make sure our holiday offers are competitively priced, easy to purchase, and easy to understand. Finally, our customers will get more than just a holiday purchase from Small Dog; they’ll get an entire team of people dedicated to ensuring that they’re happy with their purchase, and that the purchase was an excellent all-around value.

Now for a final confession: I really do love Christmas and the holiday season in general. It’s fun to decorate our website, even if it seems a little early. Some of my friends are getting tired of hearing me say this, but I already want to get a Christmas tree. I’m getting one the weekend after Thanksgiving. I’m going to make the most of the season, bad economy or not. So Merry—I mean, Happy—I mean, Seasons—eh, still too early for that. How about this: Have a nice weekend!

Ed
Ed@Smalldog.com