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Is It Christmas Already?

So here’s a simple question for all you students of social psychology these days:

What’s up with all the Christmas decorations all ready?

It is several days before Thanksgiving. I am driving in my truck with my kid, when…sure enough…I espy another house with lit up, three foot candy canes and a jolly plastic Santa in the yard. Five minutes later, there is a glowing nativity scene, replete with plastic lambs and cows and…is that Easter grass under the baby Jesus?!

Please understand that I am a huge fan of holidays. Whether it be Christmas, Samhain, or Bastille Day, I am ready to have an excuse to break out the wine and eat a bunch of food and hang little guillotines on the tree. But there is a time for everything, and I have to wonder why they hell people feel compelled to break out the Christmas decorations a month and a half before Christmas?!

For the last few years, I have noticed people getting ready before Thanksgiving. O.K. It irked me, but I can live with it. This year, however, the stores were selling me Christmas plastic with my Halloween kitsch…and that, my friends, is simply over the line.

I will freely confess that Halloween is my favourite holiday. I love playing dress up, I love candy, I love scaring people and I love skulls and fog machines and fake blood. I love ghost stories and I love having the house in my neighborhood that all the kids are afraid to approach (o.k…that’s a year round thing, but it reaches its peak at Halloween). At what point did we as a nation decide to trounce all over my favourite holiday in favor of some stupid plastic snowflakes which hearken to a time two months hence?!

I understand the motivation for the retailers. The earlier the Christmas stuff gets on the shelves, the sooner people will go into the expected gift-buying frenzy. They make money off of it, it serves their purpose, the motivation is clear.

But ordinary people, with their nativity scene out on November 1? What is their motivation? Why are we all so desperate to get to Christmas?

I have a theory. I suspect that people are looking to Christmas to save them from the present. I suspect this is a symptom of the deep unease and dissatisfaction we are feeling with our society. Our culture is out of control like an alcoholic on a three day binge…spiraling rapidly into violence and apathy and junk food sex which we use to placate our hungry souls the other eleven…ten…make that eight months of the year. We are looking for something pure, something clean, something to remind us all of what is really important in life. If we could go ahead and see Dick Cheney now, clutching a small child to his chest while promising world peace in his fist, maybe everything would be o.k. Perhaps if we just believe hard enough, everyone else will put down their weapons and join us in a Christmas carol. Just like those soldiers back in World War I.

I suspect that we have moved past our need to light up the night in order to call back the sun, and have moved into a need to just bring some light somewhere, as our world seems increasingly shrouded in darkness. I have a certain sympathy for those with their Christmas lights up since the day after Halloween, as I suspect these people are the most afraid.

Be that as it may, I am sick and tired of Christmas, the season of light, stomping all over my holiday. This year, I am fighting back. Usually, I only light up the white light string across my porch in honor of the season. This year, the skull and eyeball lights are getting their fair share, too. My black Christmas tree will be covered in origami bats and skulls, and all the chocolates I make will greet their recipient with a toothy grin and hollow eyes. The presents are getting wrapped in black paper, and the dinner will be served on my best Halloween china.

There may even be pomegranates for dessert, if they make it that long.

After all, the Greeks had a story about a sojourn in the darkness, long before Jesus came. The Greeks understood that there is a time for everything, and everything in its season. They knew that one seed could be the path to enslavement in the underworld, but that even that price had its salvation. This year, I intend to meet Persephone as she greets the rising sun, and make sure she knew I knew she was coming. I will look deep into the pomegranate’s blood red depths and recognize the promise there. Perhaps, next year, we won’t feel the need to rush to salvation. Perhaps next year, Christmas can wait its turn.

Character Counts

A head’s up for all you folks who have been looking for something to celebrate. Something that will bring us all together, and give us a warm tickly feeling in our hearts that can only be associated with…irony. The President of the United States of America has proclaimed the week of October 21-27 to be National Character Counts Week.

We, the American People, are to commemorate this occasion with “appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs”. I don’t know about you, but I love an occasion to celebrate. I am always looking for more, in fact, and I am just so excited to have this opportunity. The question, of course, is in what way we should celebrate this momentous occasion? Looking though the wording of the document to get some ideas, I came across the following passages:

The character of America’s founders was exemplified in their willingness to risk death in resisting tyranny and securing liberty and independence.Our Nation’s character continues to define how we respond to those who threaten America’s core principles of liberty, justice, and equality.

Similarly, parents should teach their children by word and deed to understand and live out the moral values that we hold, such as honesty, accepting responsibility for our actions, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

So, I’m kind of torn. There’s a lot of stuff in there about fighting and killing and how that’s a good example of moral character, but that doesn’t really work for me. I like the part about resisting tyranny, though. That whole bit about liberty and justice and honesty gets me where it counts. It sort of sounds like a challenge, doesn’t it? Almost as if the President just said “Look to your Forefathers, America. Look to the Constitution, and the principles enshrined therein. Take a good look around and figure out what kind of example we should be setting.” Almost as if President Bush looked me dead in the eye and said “Bring it on”. Continue reading