Sunday, November 10, 2013

Is Christmas Over Yet?

Because I'm not doing anything that promotes her new book

I ask because the local strip mall had it's Xmas decorations out in mid-October.  No, that isn't a typo; I typed what I meant and meant what I typed:  mid-October.

Hallowe'en wasn't over before they were up at all the other retail parking lots around me.  Christmas music has already started, too. 

Some years ago I recall hearing about a German store clerk who sued for violation of his human rights because the store he worked in started playing Christmas music in mid-December.  More and more, he has my sympathies, and my wish that such a suit would be recognized in an American court.

Fat chance.

I have no desire to go to war on Christmas, but every year I get closer to thinking about enlisting, if only because the retail observances of it are so insufferable.  Perhaps it is best for me to simply restate my support for Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday and recommend it to all of you for your yuletide reading and pleasure.  We could do worse than recover the Christmas Charles Dickens resurrected with Pickwick and Ebenezer Scrooge.  No tree, no presents, and lots of games and food and family or friends.  Let Thanksgiving be for family, if you must close in.  Let Christmas be for everyone you know who you can gather.

I know; too radical.  We are all beholden to Clement Clark Moore.  Maybe it's time, however, to start loosening those mind-forged manacles, and regain the holiday we have all but lost.

Before Sarah Palin sells it right out from under us.....

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