Christmas come early

For any person who has ever looked around Cape Girardeau and proclaimed we have too many meeting centers or banquet halls, let me give you exhibit A: the inordinate number of craft fairs in town this weekend.

Just as the city and area businesses have already strung up Christmas decorations and attempt to peer pressure us into the holiday spirit, one-time-only craft fairs will flood the city today, Saturday and Sunday to remind us of all the Christmas shopping we need to do.

Our cover story for SE Live this week profiles one woman who devotes herself year-round to family and to crafters. In doing that story, we came across three other events with pottery, jewelry, art and crafts, each benefiting its own cause or organization in the area.

If the day after Thanksgiving is the largest national shopping day, it looks like the weekend before Thanksgiving is the largest craft-shopping weekend in Southeast Missouri.

Christmas shopping is about the only holiday exercise I'll engage in before the actual start of the season. I believe in recognizing holidays in a chronological order: Easter before Memorial Day, Independence Day before Labor Day, and for Pete's sake, Thanksgiving before Christmas.

To engage in some holiday activity before the actual holiday, consult the semoEvents calendar on Page 2A for all the craft fairs. Get out a map and get to planning for this pre-big-box shopping opportunity.