I was looking back over some of my old columns last week to find a few to share with my journalism class, when I found one from almost exactly 10 years ago.
“A colleague walked into one of the many meetings we have around here and proudly announced that she had seen Christmas decorations on display at a local store,” I wrote back then.
How quaint. We were seeing the first Christmas decorations of the year in mid-November.
By mid-November of this year, I’d been seeing Christmas decorations for nearly three months. Saw the first in Sam’s Club when I went to buy tailgating supplies for football season At the end of August. AUGUST! Christmas music has been playing on the radio since Halloween.
I've written this before. But it obviously bears repeating. I don't believe Christmas should be celebrated until Santa Claus is spotted in Herald Square at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
This is a long-held belief. It goes all the way back to my childhood. It was a big deal to see Santa at the end of the parade, because it was always the first time the big guy was seen each year.
Frankly, it doesn't need to begin any sooner. As it is now, Thanksgiving gets trampled in the rush to Christmas, and I hate that because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Shoot, this year, Labor Day, Columbus Day and Halloween all got trampled, too.
My friends think I hate Christmas. They call me the Grinch.
"You're a Grinch," they say.
Perhaps. But the Grinch didn't hate Christmas for the whole show. By the end, after his heart grew three sizes that day, he was carving the roast beast for little Cindy Lou Who.
And like the Grinch, I'll soon come around, too. But not until December.
But unlike the Grinch, I've never hated Christmas. I just hate the idea of dragging out the holiday for so long that it loses what makes it so special. We used to have these moments in our lives that we could anticipate. “The Wizard of Oz” used to air on TV once a year, and it was a big deal to see it. Kids could once only watch cartoons on Saturday mornings. And Christmas was a special thing you looked forward to all year long.
Doesn’t it lose that allure – that “specialness,” if you will – if you celebrate for six months?
I understand why this happens, even if I don't like it. It's all about retail sales. Stores depend on a big Christmas season to make ends meet for the whole year. So the sooner they can start the Christmas season and get us into the store buying gifts, the better it is for them.
(They do the same thing — on a smaller scale — with other holidays. Just watch what happens a few days after Christmas. The Valentine's Day merchandise will be out.)
But I don't need to hear "White Christmas" on the radio before I’ve eaten any Thanksgiving turkey. I don't need to see a store full of tinsel and ornaments and artificial trees when it's still 70 degrees outside.
Call me a Grinch if you want.
But at least all the Whos down in Whoville had the decency to wait until Christmas Eve to start celebrating.
