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Letters From North America
by Peary Perry

So, I’m in the grocery store yesterday, minding my own business, looking around and 
filling up my basket with the things on my list. I stoop over the cheese section and as I rise up, I hit my head on what? A Christmas wreath! Here it is weeks before Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks after Halloween and what is being pushed on us already? Why, Christmas, that’s what. Now, this throws my whole shopping experience off track. I still haven’t gotten used to getting a Halloween card from someone, much less send one out to anybody. You’d think we’d get some kind of a marketing break before we get bombarded with holiday stuff so early. Perhaps I’ve had blinders on and just haven’t noticed, but it sure seems to me that the holiday seasons start earlier and earlier each year doesn’t it? I can remember that you never, ever saw anything that had to do with Christmas until well after Thanksgiving. You never saw anything to do with Thanksgiving until after Halloween was over and done with. This gets more and more confusing each year to me. I kind of like to have a break in between holiday periods. You know, just to rest and then get into the mood again. Kind of a seasonal thing. For example, I notice that folks are decorating more and more for Halloween each year. You see more fall wreaths on doors and stuff in orange and black. Now, this does blend well with the fall colors of Thanksgiving, but is totally out of whack with Christmas décor. The problem doesn’t get any easier in the spring and summer. You no sooner get out of Easter, than you hit Memorial Day, then July 4th and then Labor Day. What could we do to make it easier on all of us? Well, I propose we combine a number of holidays into one or two weeks each year. Kind of a free time or off week for the whole country. Maybe do one in the winter and one in the Spring-Summer time. We could easily combine Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years into one giant holiday week. The whole country would just shut down, including the government. Of course, we wouldn’t notice anything unusual about that since they operate like they’re about shut down most of the time anyway. But, wait, that’s the subject of a column to be released at a later date. We might call the winter holiday something like Hallowed-New-Thanks-Mas. It has a certain ring to it don’t you think? Of course, we could have All-New-Thanks-Mas since Halloween is really called All Saints day. It might roll off the tongue a little easier, don’t you think? I don’t have a clue as to what we could call the combined holidays of Easter, Independence Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day. Maybe we could get by with something generic like…”Spring or Summer Break.” I’m certain that I would never get the support of the greeting card industry on this idea since they now have a card for nearly every day of the week. I’ve noticed that in my local grocery store the greeting card racks use up as much space as the groceries. You feel guilty just walking by the aisle. They now have little voice activated deals that shout at you and tease you with stuff
like…"Don’t you need to send a card to your nephew?’ How do they even know that I have a nephew? Or, is it your dogs birthday? When did we start observing the birthday of animals? Was I gone the week we voted on that? What’s wrong with this picture? I have a dog, it has a birthday, I buy a card and sign it to give it to a dog that can’t read and doesn’t care and that’s supposed to make sense? I’m using my money to give me a card in the name of some animal that lives here. Am I supposed to
go…"Oh, surprise, surprise, I wonder who could have given such a lovely card to Rover?” Excuse me, while I go and throw up. You know as wild as this combining holidays sounds, I just happened to look on my calendar for November 23rd of this year and my calendar
says…"Labor, Thanksgiving Day in Japan.” So, other countries are already starting to see the sense of this new and revolutionary idea. Think of it, if we could combine the holidays of other countries around the world, then we would all be able to travel and visit with each other when no one was working. No way that’d ever fly. In addition to the greeting card people being against us, so would the travel industry. Part of their revenue comes from those of us who have to go see someone in some other part of the world when time will permit. In most cases, you have to get back to work or they do, so another trip becomes necessary. Thus, more money for the travel people. No, we’d have to get really broad support from the majority of the people in the world to put something over like this. But, wait a minute, if everyone took a holiday at the same time all over the world, then that would mean that the governments of the world would be shut down as well and couldn’t pass any more laws, wouldn’t it? Now that’s something I think all of us could agree would be a grand idea worth looking into. Maybe I hit my head too hard on that Christmas wreath. As usual, write kind and thoughtful things to me at www.pearyperry.com. Send hate mail to Homer Snerdly,
c/o General Delivery, Dipsy-Doodle, Texas. My wife’s cousin who complains that he never hears from anyone. Go ahead, make his day. 

For questions or comments, please contact me at www.pearyperry.compperry@austin.rr.com