When we book a holiday we do so months in advance, we pay a deposit to secure our date and our place and then we sit back and start planning our trip.
We might buy new clothes for it (or at the very least look out some appropriate bits and pieces) and put them aside so they’re ready for the trip. We might look at nearby activities/ days out/ places of interest. We might even put together an itinerary, whether it’s detailed to the hour with rakes of activities, or as rough and relaxed as ‘if it rains we’ll do X, and if the weather is sunny we’ll do Y.’
Taking our time
As the months go by we might put aside some spending money, as well as probably paying off the next instalment for the holiday. We don’t want to be stressing about money whilst on holiday, or unsure what to do or where to go when we get there.
In short, we give ourselves a lot of time to plan a leisurely activity that we’ll not get to enjoy for months. So why are we so resistant to doing the same thing with Christmas?
Christmas comes at the same time every year and, for some reason, most of us seem to treat it like a surprise every time. We tell ourselves that it’s ‘too early’ to think about it until about (late) November and then we have four or five weeks to seriously think about gifts and food and everything else that's involved.
It’s chaos, it’s expensive, it’s stressful, and it definitely doesn’t leave us with that nice ‘Christmassy’ feeling we had at that time of year when we were younger.
Easing the pressure
We've all just passed September's pay day and there are still two (or three) paydays between now and Christmas. It seems a mile off but it's also enough time to spread the cost per month and make Christmas a lot easier if we start planning (and putting money aside) for it now.
Loads of people do this anyway, and we might be preaching to the choir here. However, we weren’t sure if all of our customers know that we’ve actually set up a service in-store to help you with this too.
How can Fun Junction help?
We can't guarantee that all items in the shop will still be on the shelves in the first few weeks of December. We'd love to be able to say otherwise, but by that time of year, many of our suppliers have started looking ahead to the next year and stock of many items starts to dry up.
It can be really tough and it’s always unpleasant having to explain to a customer that we no longer have that toy which their child saw ‘back in the October holidays’.
However, if you see that item in October and tell us that you want it (you can be as subtle as you like by the way, even a Facebook message while you’re in the shop will be fine) we can put it aside and it’ll be yours to collect in December.
Simply say you want to put together a Christmas Club and pay 20% of the price of the goods you choose in order to secure them in the back all the way till Christmas.
From then you can pay whatever you like into your Christmas Club account between the time your items are put aside and the time you pick them up.
Any time soon is a good time to start
Some customers start their club as early as January but the beginning of October still gives you heaps of time to start looking for the perfect presents and put them aside.
You can add more items as you see them all the way up till pickup (we still have lots of deliveries of new and exciting things due between now and December). You can even look at items here on our website in your own time then message or email us to have them added to your club.
A Strange Christmas doesn't have to be a Hard Christmas
It’s probably going to be a strange Christmas this year with the cost of living etc. (but then we’ve had a few years of ‘strange Christmasses’ now). However, we don’t want it to be a bad/ difficult Christmas, so we hope that our Christmas Club might be of some use to you in the coming months.
You’ll also earn loyalty points on all paid items in your Christmas Club, you get a loyalty stamp for every £10 you spend and when you reach 12 stamps you get £5 to spend in-store, so the savings can mount up along with your club.
If you’d like to know more about our Christmas Club simply message us on Facebook, or ask any member of staff in our shops and we can fill you in on more details.
As always, thanks for stopping by, Hope to see you soon,
All the best,
The Fun Junction Team