Greetings from the front lines of the war on Christmas!
It's been a busy time around here as we've been stocking up on provisions, adding lights to clearly illuminate the space and posting a sentry, who comes cleverly disguised as a six-foot snowman. Because the Santa didn't offer 360-degree observational capability. Or didn't fit the color scheme. One or the other ...
Still, a lot to be done and less and less time to do it. But I feel we'll be positioned to fight it out as long as this campaign lasts. And since next year it's apparently going to start around July, that could be a good while.
Referring to Christmas as "the best time of the year" will apparently be shortened to Christmas "is the year."
I will say that, if in fact there is a war on Christmas, it seems Christmas is winning. Decisively. With little to no resistance from the enemy, who is ... well, as yet to be determined, but will certainly be identified at some point in the future. But probably not the fourth week in December, because everyone will be out finishing up the last-minute shopping.
In fact, not only is Christmas winning a war it was never, ever, under any circumstances and at any time losing (or even having to fight), it appears to be gaining ground. If truth is the first casualty of any actual conflict, the biggest casualty of the current war on Christmas appears to be Thanksgiving.
Every year I look forward to loading my loved ones up in the family truckster and doing a recon for Christmas lights and holiday decorations. I generally look forward to doing this, oh, I don't know, in December. This year, we made our first foray before the leaves started turning in earnest.
Yep, nothing like getting a jump on ... whoever we're supposed to be getting a jump on in our fight to preserve something that was never actually, even the remotest form, in danger anyway.
And, it seems that, in this war, if you're not gaining ground, you're backing up. Which explains why the color scheme for this Thanksgiving has gone from autumnal shades of brown and orange to red and white. With some green.
I do seem to remember a time not so long ago when the point of Thanksgiving was to spend time enjoying food and family as we celebrated all that had been given to us this year. Or to fall asleep while watching football on the TV. But, usually with your family, so, all good there.
Now, Thanksgiving is at best the undercard for the Great Christmas Extravaganza and at worst a turkey-flavored speed bump before the Black Friday sales.
Turkey-flavored speed bump. OK, well, at least it's not pumpkin spice.
Under normal circumstances (and I want to pause here and fondly remember "normal circumstances." I mean, remember way back in 2019 when we thought current circumstances were "normal?" Yeah ... good times. Sort of), the slow, steady creep of Christmas onto the rest of the calendar would be a matter of little concern. I mean, what's a few more days of "All I Want for Christmas Is You?" OK, bad example. Bad, bad, badbadbadbad example.
But the challenge for some of us (and I'm not pointing fingers, mostly because, well, it's me) is that we have tendency to be a little derelict of duty in our personal part of the war on Christmas. Up until, say, when the stores close on Christmas Eve?
Pushing the season farther into the year just takes our activity from misdemeanor to felony crime. It's going to take a lot of denial to keep from thinking about Christmas if everyone else starts in August.
And as any good solider, I want to do my duty, play my part, hold onto the rope, yeah, yeah, whatever. It's just that I'd really like to get my guilt over my lack of participation in the planning and execution of Thanksgiving out of the way before I take on the additional guilt of not participating in the planning and execution of Christmas.
So while I acknowledge that war makes its own commands and ours is not to reason why (and reason seems to have very little to do with any of this), I would like to offer up a suggestion. Can we at least hold off until the Thanksgiving dessert plates are scraped clean before we turn our attention to Christmas? Because if we don't rein things in a bit, well, there's no telling what might happen.
You hear that, Halloween? Christmas is coming for you ...