Day 287
Though it’s a week before Thanksgiving and I really hate to admit it … it’s officially Christmas-time.
I know, I know. I saw Christmas stuff on the shelves next to the Back-To-School pencil packs back in AUGUST – but I didn’t want to acknowledge the wares displayed at that time.
The Christmas candy followed soon after placed right next to the Halloween candy and costumes.
I think the Christmas carols started filtering through the loudspeakers at the shopping center sometime last month. Even then, while softly humming along to Frosty the Snowman, I didn’t want to partake in the early seasonal displays and goods (though I did catch myself down those aisles anyway!).
However, yesterday I saw my first real Christmas tree lot (how do those trees last til New Year’s?) … and today, the grocery store’s front entry area was packed with wreaths and miniature trees and … yes, a Salvation Army stand. Complete with a nice, though cold, gentleman ringing the bell.
I almost always put something into the collection buckets but I don’t start until December. It’s mid-November! Even this is a bit too early.
I remember the days (of yore) when I was a child (and the dinosaurs roamed the planet) and the Christmas season didn’t start until after the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers were safely in the fridge. It didn’t coincide with my dad’s birthday over the Labor Day weekend as it seems to now!
Back in the day the major department stores waited until the day after Thanksgiving to show off their holiday window displays. It was always met with much hype and anticipation just as was seeing Santa at the end of the Thanksgiving Day parades. THOSE things marked the beginning of the Christmas season.
Fathers and sons would be out in the bitter cold, risking frostbite and electrocution, putting up their own lighting displays. This too was done after Thanksgiving – not in balmy September. Where’s the fun in that?
I remember waiting anxiously for the first Christmas/holiday special on TV … I don’t care who it was Dean Martin and the Gold Diggers, the King Family (I still don’t know who they were but they had a zillion people in that musical family), Dinah Shore, Donny and Marie … everyone who was anyone had a holiday show. It was fabulous.
And then of course, there would be the animated cartoon shows … Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And, if you lived in the Chicago area … you also saw Susie Snowflake and Hardrock, Cocoa and Joe! Now THAT was holiday television at its finest! And if you, by chance, missed them – too bad kid … you’d have to wait until NEXT YEAR!
And then there’d be the trips to the local mall and getting to sit on Santa’s lap (no I was NOT a teenager at the time). My dad was always looking at something in the Sears tool section and luckily Santa was usually across the aisle … so, I’d stand in line, right by the candy and hot nuts counter (ah, it smelled so good) … and waited my turn.
Now THAT was Christmas.
In any case … the “Countdown to Christmas” movies started two weeks ago and I’ve caught a few, though purely because I couldn’t stand to watch another reality show episode or rerun on the Food Network channel.
I still wish that anticipation was a factor – but it is long gone as we have been bombarded with Christmas goods and tunes for too long already. I’m sure those people working in retail can’t wait for the actual holiday to pass.
And as for me, even without all that I’ve mentioned, today would have marked the holiday season for me … I cried at my first Christmas-edition Folger’s coffee commercial!