The Early Bird is a Partridge

I knew it was bound to happen, but I admit, I forgot. Unfortunately, it happens every year, and every year I forget just the same.

I promised myself I would not go to the mall until at least November, so as not to see anything that would remotely remind me of Christmas…but apparently, I’m only good at keeping my promises to other people, and I’m very disloyal to myself.

Our girls needed winter clothes, and my husband said that we should go to the mall and get them some. Yes, my husband. I don’t know about anyone else, but the shock of hearing those words come out of his mouth made all rational thought leave my brain. I was too busy getting him out the door and into the car before he changed his mind to remind myself that the mall was off limits until the week before Thanksgiving.

No, I’m not the Grinch. I’m not uttering “Bah, Humbug” under my breath at the sight of a department store gone Christmas wild. The fact is, I absolutely LOVE Christmas…it happens to be the most wonderful time of the year (to me and Andy Williams). But the problem I find is that every year the decorations come earlier and earlier, doing nothing but numbing us all to the joys of the season and the thrill of finding the perfect, meaningful gift while listening to your favorite holiday songs piped over the store speakers. Instead, we all go about the season fretfully trying to find outrageously priced items in exclusive stores for people who put more emphasis on the gift-giving aspect of the holidays than actually enjoying them for what they stand for. We buy right into the marketing world’s ploy to get us to spend more money sooner by “getting us into the Christmas spirit” with decorations and lights, only to have the stores pull them right out from under our feet on December 26th , when we can finally relax and enjoy them.

When I was little, the stores didn’t decorate for the holidays until the day after Thanksgiving. Somewhere along the line, it became the day after Halloween. Now, it’s October 15th, more than 2 months away from Christmas, and there are trees and lights throughout the mall. Pretty soon, we’ll be seeing Christmas trees on top of the sunscreen display after the Fourth of July (actually, this may have already happened in a few places).

The other aspect of the pre-holiday season that gets to me is the once-novel “24 Hours of Christmas” music played by select radio stations. I thought it was great when one of the stations in our area decided to expand their Christmas music play list to the week before the actual holiday. Another radio station joined in the next year, and for the week before Christmas you were actually able to flip to another holiday station if you couldn’t stand to hear one more “Pah-Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum” on the one you were currently listening to. Flash forward to last year: Now there are at least four stations playing Christmas music 24/7, and one of them actually had the nerve to start the Monday before Thanksgiving! The ironic thing is that all of these stations will stop playing Christmas music completely at 12 midnight December 25th, which for some of us is right in the middle of our celebration. Talk about post-holiday depression…our gathering hasn’t even ended yet, and the media has already moved on to the Super bowl.

In my family, Christmas week was always considered the week after the holiday, and it wasn’t unusual to still be listening to Nat King Cole right up to New Year’s Eve. Friends and relatives were still stopping by to visit throughout the week, and it was still as festive a time as the previous seven days. Now, Christmas is run by the supreme evildoer of all time—money. Christmas becomes as disposable as a toddler’s dirty diaper on December 26th. It has no use anymore, and no one wants to look at it because it makes them sick.

I long for the days when the holidays still had meaning; meaning other than end-of-year corporate financial statements. When taking a stroll or a drive on a peaceful night to view decorated houses brought more joy than an iPod Nano. When a cup of homemade eggnog could warm your heart better than any outfit from Abercrombie and Fitch. When gathering with friends by the fireplace to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” was more desirable than running serpentine through the mall, rushing from crowded store to crowded store while people sneezed on you, cut you in line and stepped on your toes without even so much as a “Pardon me.”

My son actually asked me today, in all seriousness, when we were going to put up the tree. When I reminded him that we do it the day after Thanksgiving, he replied that it’s almost Halloween, and Thanksgiving is “only, like, three weeks later”. My point is valid…he has fallen prey to the early signs of the season, and his internal clock is off-kilter. He should be having visions of candy-corns and caramel apples, but instead he’s seeing sugarplums.

Dear God, give me the resources to help my children learn to savor the Christmas spirit in the season that it belongs in. I don't want to spend the next two months falling prey to the media and the mall. I want to relax and enjoy the gatherings at my friends' houses during the month of December. I want to bake sugar cookies from scratch while Frank Sinatra croons about those J-I-N-G-L-E Bells the night before Christmas Eve. I want to sit in the living room where the only light comes from my tree and the fireplace, while getting chills up my spine as Celine Dion sings "Oh, Holy Night". You just can't enjoy these things in October.

At this rate, it might be over before it even begins. As long as I never hear one of my kids say, "Mom, when are you taking down the tree already?", I guess I'll be fine.