Holiday season brings plethora of phobias

Remember the scene in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in which Lucy determines Charlie has pantophobia, the fear of everything?

Technically, pantophobia is "a condition of vague, nonspecific anxiety" or "a generalized dread."

Although pantophobia is relatively rare, there are several other phobias associated with the holiday season that affect more people than you might think.

A woman takes her dog for a walk in the snow along Themis Street on March 4, 2015, in Cape Girardeau.Southeast Missourian file

Chionophobia, for instance, is the fear of snow, while doronophobia is the fear of receiving (and opening) presents. Heaven forbid someone suffering from chionophobia and doronophobia has to deal with a white Christmas!

There's also the fear of Christmas trees (dendrophobia), the fear of children (pedophobia) and the fear of having your photo taken (ipovlopsychophobia). Someone with this trifecta of phobias would have a hard time posing for a family photo with nieces and nephews next to the living room tree.

And then there's decidophobia, which, and I kid you not, is the fear of making decisions. I believe I have this condition, although it wasn't easy for me to decide.

Why do I think I have decidophobia? Because I agonize every year when trying to decide what gifts to buy for people on my Christmas shopping list.

Fortunately, my wife has turned gift shopping into an art form. She has a knack for finding the perfect gifts for everyone in our family, so for the past 40-plus years I have happily surrendered nearly all the holiday gift shopping to her. However, my decidophobia still crops up every year when I try to find the perfect gifts for her, and I think I miss the mark more often than I'd like to admit.

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For millions of Americans who are more confident in their shopping abilities than I, the holiday shopping season officially began last week with Black Friday, followed by Small Business Saturday. It continues this week with Cyber Monday. Retailers from coast to coast entice shoppers with deep discounts on everything from big screen TVs and laptops to the latest game consoles and fashions.

Over the years, Black Friday had the reputation of being the "mother of all retail shopping days," when long lines of people waited in subfreezing predawn hours for store doors to open so they could grab a coveted Xbox (or whatever the "must have" merchandise was during any particular shopping season).

But this year, with a backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Friday crowds nationally were not quite as large as in years past (although the parking lots at West Park Mall and other local shopping centers appeared much busier than normal).

According to national news reports, many stores actively tried to deter big crowds and encouraged social distancing Friday. By midafternoon Friday, Forbes was reporting smaller Black Friday turnouts in places such as Chicago, Houston and Portland, Oregon, and according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, traffic at the Mall of America there was down 80% compared to last year.

Still, the National Retail Federation is projecting holiday sales in 2020 will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% over 2019 levels because of, in large part, an expected 20% to 30% online sales increase.

According to Adobe Analytics, online sales last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, hit a record $5.1 billion. That was 21.5% higher than the previous Thanksgiving.

Cyber Monday, according to many retail industry experts, has come to replace Black Friday as the nation's biggest annual shopping event. And, from what I've read, Cyber Monday discounts usually last a week or longer and are often just as good, and sometimes better, than Black Friday deals.

And the extra days give me more time to deal with my decidophobia.

Upcoming moves

A pair of Cape Girardeau businesses will be moving to new locations in the coming weeks.

Legal Services of Southern Missouri has leased suites 102 and 103 of the recently renovated Broadway West Plaza on the corner of Broadway and Perry Avenue in Cape Girardeau.Jay Wolz

Legal Services of Southern Missouri's Cape Girardeau office will become a tenant of the new Broadway West Plaza at the intersection of Broadway and Perry Avenue. The firm is currently at 1225 N. Kingshighway.

According to Becky Harding of Area Properties Real Estate, the law firm will occupy suites 102 and 103 of the building in the 1700 block of Broadway, which once housed a convenience store and Ken's Cape Cleaners.

Other tenants will be announced in the coming weeks.

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This building on Independence Street next to Sheridan Drive will be the new home of 180 Fitness by early January.Jay Wolz

A few blocks to the south, remodeling is underway at 1749 Independence St., a white one-story building behind Muy Bueno restaurant. By early January, it will be the new home of 180 Fitness, currently located at 2530 William St.

The new location will afford 180 Fitness more space and visibility, according to owner Melissa Stickel, who told me she plans to "eventually add an outdoor workout space" to the Independence Street building.

What's Going On?

I've been asked several times recently what's happening at the intersection of Big Bend Road (Highway 177) and Lexington Avenue on the east side of Cape. I checked it out the other day and it appears some trees have been cleared from the site, which is just east of the Legends apartment complex.

According to sources at City Hall, there are "no active (building) permits" for the property and the activity at this point is simply "brush clearing."

Some 'leftover' thoughts

By now you're probably eating turkey sandwiches, turkey casserole and other turkey-based dishes as you finish off the leftovers from last week's Thanksgiving meals.

If you cooked a turkey this year, there's a good chance your bird was raised in Missouri. Missouri ranks fifth nationally for turkey production, raising more than 19 million of the gobblers in 2020. And if you prefer chicken, you might be interested in knowing Missouri is the nation's eighth-largest producer of broiler chickens, with more than 293 million of them produced annually.

According to the American Farm Bureau, the average cost to feed a Thanksgiving meal to 10 people was about 4% lower this year than in 2019 at a cost of less than $5 per person. That's the lowest meal cost since 2010, according to the farm bureau.

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