This past weekend I’m
driving around
performing some of my
routine housekeeping
chores when I am struck
dumbfounded by the sight
of Christmas decorations
already in place at one
of the local malls close
to my house.
Now, I don’t know about
you, but I suspect the
majority of us are just
looking for a few weeks
of peace and
quiet after having been
subjected to almost a
full year of election
diatribe by all forms of
the news media. This
year it seemed to occupy
our collective minds to
the point where most of
us were little more than
zombies on Election Day.
We stumbled our ways
into the booths with one
thought on our
minds….’must get this
finished.’ Our state was
fortunate in some regard
since the outcome here
was never in doubt. Some
voters in the so called
‘swing states’ had non
stop radio and
television advertising
and up to twenty pieces
of campaign literature
sent to them each day.
God save us all.
So, here we are fresh
from the polling booths,
ready to settle down for
a few weeks of relative
calm before the storm of
the holidays and what
happens? Why, they move
the holidays up so they
start advertising
earlier. I’m brain dead
after Labor Day,
Halloween, National
Elections…now we go
directly to
Thanksgiving, Christmas
and New Year…. give me a
break…. I bet there are
folks in prison having
more fun than we are.
This morning’s paper
blares a headline…”Only
seven weeks until
Christmas.” Seven weeks?
That’s just around the
corner. No time to
waste, no time to
dawdle, certainly no
time to rest. We’ve got
to drag our old weary
bodies out into the
malls and start the
holiday process over
again. I’m not finished
with July 4th
and Labor Day. I’m not
ready for garland and
ribbons and stringing
lights on the balcony,
much less trying to find
the one bulb in the
string of lights that
causes the entire string
to short out.
Pray tell me this. We
have put men on the
moon. We have sent
rockets to Mars and the
outermost parts of our
solar system. Why can’t
we have a string of
lights that work even if
one bulb doesn’t
cooperate? I truthfully
believe this is a major
conspiracy on the part
of the Christmas light
association to deprive
us, no better yet
disenfranchise (have you
heard this word more
than you want?) us for
the enjoyment of
Christmas. I despise, I
hate, I loathe dragging
those boxes out of the
attic each and every
year to sit down and
spend hours untangling
only to find that the
thousands of bulbs
absolutely refuse to
glow simply because one
bulb is on the fritz.
What kind of a world is
this we live in?
I feel certain as I sit
here and write this
article, somewhere in
this country men are
hard at work cutting
down little trees and
arranging them in huge
stacks to be sent to the
far corners of this
country within the next
few weeks. There they
will be stood up and
arranged on thousands of
small lots waiting for
the next sucker like me
to come along and pay
good money for one
before they are sold
out. The tradition then
states that we drive
this two-month-old dead
piece of shrubbery into
our living rooms where
we stick it into a
bucket of water and
somehow expect it to
revive. At the same time
we are clogging our
collective vacuums with
pine needles trying to
stay ahead of a losing
game. The same
mentality requires us to
keep each and every
Christmas ornament made
by any of our children
or their children and
sometimes the children
of neighbors until the
end of time.
Some of my children’s
earlier creations are
somewhat abstract and
require a certain amount
of license to even
consider that they were
actually made by a human
being. Only the Mother
knows for certain that
her child made this one
and was his first
attempt using glue,
glitter, tissue paper
and a clothespin. How
she can see the Virgin
Mary in this is simply
beyond my ability, but
then again perhaps I am
being entirely too
critical.
An old poem once had the
line in it…”Ours is not
to reason why….” Can it
be that this must be the
attitude we have to
adopt when it comes to
our annual activities?
As sure as the elections
roll around, so does
Thanksgiving and
Christmas. Perhaps I
should quit fighting it
every year and just get
into the mood before
it’s too late and I have
to think about
Valentines Day.
