Not Ready Yet

Hallmark put up their Christmas ornament display a month ago.
I started seeing Christmas decorations in stores this weekend.
The local watering hole by work has a winter display in the entry.
There are Christmas ads on TV (and yes, I know, I could get a DVR and skip the ads. Not going to happen.)
The crazy women in accounting at work are already vying for bragging rights as to who will be done with her Christmas shopping first.
And I saw not one but two houses with outside Christmas trees lit on my drive home from work tonight.

IT'S ONLY THE SECOND OF NOVEMBER PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!

When I was a kid, not only did we walk to school barefoot, in the snow, 10 miles uphill both ways, but Christmas season didn't start until AFTER Thanksgiving.  I remember going to the mall on Veteran's Day one year (we always had it off from school) and being surprised that they were actually starting to put up the Christmas trees in the center, a week before Thanksgiving.  Veteran's Day is a week and a half from now.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but not two whole months of it.

Christmas is special.  It is the celebration of the birth of Christ, if that is what you believe in (I do).  It is a time to spend with family and close friends, a time to reflect on the previous year and prepare for the new one coming, a chance to take a break, however small, from the ordinary, hum-drum, every day life.  But Christmas becomes not special if the "season" lasts from November 1st until New Year's.  That's 2 months, a sixth of the year.  After that much time in our faces, Christmas becomes just another part of the ordinary, hum-drum, every day life.

I don't have a solution, other than trying to unplug somewhat from the media and retail hiveminds that seem to be a big part of American society these days.  And that's not really a workable solution for me, either.  As I mentioned above, I don't have, and do not have any intention of getting, a DVR, so I watch TV live and endure commercials.  I can't just not shop between now and Thanksgiving, so I'm going to see decorations and trees and probably hear Christmas music in stores.  But I can, and will, keep my home Christmas-free until after Thanksgiving.