The past few weeks have seen temperatures and heat index returns in the high 90s and low 100s, a clear sign that summer is well underway.
With that comes the social media residents pining for colder temperatures, the same ones who, in January longed for the very weather they're going on about now.
While I have no magic wand to bring cooler temperatures to the area, I can — through words — take you back 100 years to Christmas 1922, in a classic "Christmas in July" maneuver.
Harklin Co. at 138-140 N. Main St. in Adrian, known today as the Copeland Furniture building, offered a wide range of gift ideas in time for Christmas. Among the store's popular toys were dolls which, depending on their size and durability, sold for between 98 cents and $4.98. This was a time when the average worker brought home $33 a week, or around 65 cents an hour. A silk stripe shirt cost $1.69, and a dress fit for a night on the town was $12.95.
Sheffield Book Shop listed its complement of "very useful gifts" of fountain pens and Eversharp pencils.
Wood, Crane & Wood packaged its holiday advertisements to get away from the stigma that shirts and ties were gifts for the elderly: "A girl likes for you to remember her birthday, but not her birthdays! Same with buying Christmas gifts for men. A man who was born in 1866 doesn't like to be reminded of it in your gift to him."
"All men are young at holiday time and our clean display of shirts reach further into men's hearts than something that will tell them they are getting along in years," the ad reads. "Ties for the young men and ties for the men who always stay young" were offered for between 35 cents and 65 cents each. Fancy ties were sold for up to $2.50 each.
Down the street, at Bennett-Hoxie Hardware Co. at 134 N. Main St., the store rolled out its list of ideal gifts for men, women and children, from coffee pots and razors to air guns and steel traps. Those last two items were in the kids' category.
If dancing was on your celebration list in 1922, Deerfield's Logan Hall was the site of a dance Dec. 16. The admission price was 55 cents.
For the real estate investor or the family looking to celebrate Christmas in a new home, you could buy a six-room home outside Adrian on a "fine gravel road" for $2,600. The home sat on 40 acres with a nearly new barn and a silo.
How about a car for Christmas 100 years ago? A basic touring car was $65, a one-ton truck breaking the bank at $185.
In the final hours before Christmas Day, merchants turned from offering gifts at sale prices to imparted words of cheer and wishes.
The George Tripp Co., a jeweler with stores in Adrian, Tecumseh and Addison, offered a "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and that you may receive every thing your heart desires, including an automobile, twins, a million dollars and a ton of coal."
With a little over 160 shopping days until Christmas, it's too early to know what will be the popular gifts this year. However, like the gift lists printed in 1922, our descendants in 2122 will look at what we sought with interest, perhaps laughter, or a "wow, that was cheap for a car/house back then!"
Until one of those retailers later this year is the first to blink and roll out the Christmas decorations and gift displays, stay cool — head to the lake or pool, sneak an ice cube down someone's neck, or kick back and enjoy the summer, knowing in the back of your mind the snow shovel you might get Dec. 25 will be put to good use.
Dan Cherry is a Lenawee County historian.