Christmas Reality

Have you taken a good look in your neighborhood lately?  “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go; Take a look in the five-and-ten…”  Yes, the song says it all.  It’s the beginning of November and Christmas is everywhere. There are decorations, music, advertisements, movies on cable and other signs of Christmas at every corner.

I remember when there was a definite division of holidays.  First came Halloween, beginning with weeks of preparation and ending on October 31st, with the parade of tricksters going door to door in their scary costumes. Then, a long lull was experienced before embarking on the next holiday, Thanksgiving. For this occasion, children drew turkeys, Indians and pilgrims. They sang about them, wrote about them and even performed plays about them, but on the home front, things were calm. Thanksgiving required little decoration, if any, and no preparation until the week it arrived. At the beginning of the week, pies were made and shopping was done in anticipation of the great feast. There were no signs of Christmas anywhere, with the exception of a few toys moving into stores. No Christmas music, decorations or movies. On Thanksgiving day, extended families and friends gathered to observe the festivities of eating and expressing thanks, both done in abundance. On this day, Santa would always make his arrival in the civilized world, attached to the parades associated with football. Christmas sales began the next day, which heralded in the beginning of Christmas shopping. Lights and decorations went up in stores, but homes generally were not decorated until about two weeks before Christmas. And… Christmas ended with the ringing in of the new year.

Well, the merchants are pushing the season. I remember when toy stores once existed almost exclusively at Christmas. Hotly advertised toys were not a part of our culture.  Not so now.  We find that if we want one of these toys for our little darlings, we must shop early. This may be what drives the mad dash to an early Christmas. Thanksgiving is now the great feast during the holiday season. We eat our way from October to January.

Now, I must say, I like some of the changes.  I like the holiday feeling, and that song is sure playing in my head. I love lights, they are so festive. But, Christmas memories do not necessarily match Christmas reality. It’s November 18th, and “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go”!