It’s Already Here…

By now you know it is coming.

It might have attacked you at one of the local stores while you were browsing or it may have held you captive while listening to the radio in your car or on your television screen while watching the game.

Christmas is here and here to stay till the end of next month and although I can ‘Jingle’ with the best of them I cannot help but long for the days when Christmas cheer started the day after Thanksgiving and not the day after Halloween.

Now, I’m not being a Grinch here as I have heard many a person make the same complaint.

Maybe it is caused by nostalgia for a simpler time or I am just tired of having ‘buy, buy, buy’ screamed at me from every angle from November first till the end of the year.

I realize the Christmas shopping season is a big part of our yearly national economy and that the free and open market is a big part of the American way but when it becomes too much it becomes nauseating and might be showing people the wrong way to look at this holiday.

It is not all that surprising that some may find the Christmas sales barrage too much to handle as every Black Friday we hear tales of trampling and beatings over a deal on a flat screen or even more infamously a Tickle Me Elmo or a Furby, whatever that may be.

I guess what I’m trying to say is the more commercialized the holiday season becomes the more we lose focus on the true meaning of the season.

The memory always cheats as they say, but I have fond memories of the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Counting down the days to both the holiday and Christmas vacation.

Waiting with baited breath for Christmas morning and even then it seemed to go by all so fast after all that it was built up to be.

That month always seemed magical and although I’m sure today’s youth might feel the same about the two months of build up, the loss of the old traditional time for holiday cheer leaves me feeling sad and just a bit old.

Having all those Christmas adverts and displays up thirty days too soon does nothing of course to diminish the meaning of the actual holiday. But it does say a lot about how Christmas has changed.

I miss all those simpler times where it seemed people were more focused on family and the holiday then expensive baubles and one day mega sales.

So for those of you who love Christmas but hate the way it has become over commercialized in the last two decades or so, have faith that you are not alone and have the gumption to leave those Halloween, Thanksgiving and Fall decorations up a little longer then your neighbors.

Everything has its time.

Also let me take the time in this space to wish all of our readers as well as my friends and family a very Happy Thanksgiving as well!