It is mid-October. Labor day is only six weeks behind us and Halloween is still two weeks away. So why did the nightly news commentator just say, “Christmas is just around the corner.” What corner? We still have two major holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, to celebrate before most people will even begin to shop for Christmas. And let us not forget the Jewish and Muslim holidays either. And there are also Columbus Day and Veteran’s Day that we almost totally ignore. I even saw a completely decorated Christmas tree in a local variety store in September! And to add insult to injury when I went looking in my cabinet for a nice dinner music CD to play for guests, the first eight titles I found were Christmas music. I just can’t take it anymore.
It used to be an aberration when Christmas decorations were put out before Thanksgiving. Department stores reluctantly waited until the day after Thanksgiving to pull out the Christmas duds, decorate store windows and dress up a roly-poly bearded man in a red suit to wander the aisles and terrify young children with a well placed Ho Ho Ho. That I could tolerate. It was at least sequential along the timeline march to the birth of Christ and then entrance into the new year.
In our house we didn’t even put up the Christmas tree until the night before Christmas. The gifts were skillfully hidden throughout the house with the hopes that a curious child wouldn’t find them. And then, ah, the wonder and awe when sleepy-eyed babes wandered into the living room to see the shining tree, the alluring array of delightful gifts, and the empty glass of milk and missing cookies – a sure sign that Santa had been there. It was magical. Jesus was mystical and the celebration of his birth was a holiday anticipated for 364 days a year.
But now, commercialism has won. Year-round Christmas Shoppes are in almost every town. Newspapers advertise Christmas items as early as August and, perhaps with the exception of Halloween, all other holidays simply fade into the woodwork. Halloween has become the counter holiday to Christmas. Celebrated by pagans around bonfires and under full-moons with chants and dances to a variety of gods and goddesses. Christians celebrate Christmas at candle-lit Christmas Eve services and decorated evergreen trees bountiful with gifts under them and tables groaning with yummy food. We seem, however, to forget the birthday cake. And, I often wonder if we haven’t forgotten whose birthday it is anyway. Or if it is even a birthday at all, but rather a free-for-all gift exchange.
Maybe it’s just that I am seventy and not caught up with the way we do things these days. But then again, maybe I’m right. And while the pagans have Halloween, the Jewish Hanukkah, the Muslims Ramadan, and the Christians Christmas, I still think we ought to celebrate them in sequence whatever our faith so that “just around the corner,” really is just around the corner.