SLIGHTLY
OFF THE MARK
I always feel a little
disjointed when the holidays arrive. I’m never ready for Thanksgiving, which
is followed within hours by Christmas, and minutes after that by New Year’s
Eve, followed immediately by several months of miserable winter. I’m never ready.
And yet, the holidays
come every year. So, what’s my excuse?
“Gee, I thought for sure it wouldn’t happen this time. Why
was I not warned?”
My mother calls every
year to find out when we want to celebrate Thanksgiving. We never celebrate
Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving—that
would be too easy. But many of us work in the service industry. In my 911
center, we almost never close down for the holidays. Okay, we took a few hours
off when the Cubs won, but otherwise …
Many of my other
relatives work in the more difficult service jobs, the ones where you have to
work a register and deal with customers face to face. They don’t take 911
calls, but they often make 911 calls. I think I’d rather be on the receiving
end. It’s because of their jobs that we can’t celebrate a holiday on a holiday.
It used to be they were busy on Thanksgiving, setting up for Black Friday; now
they’re busy on Thanksgiving, having
Black Friday.
If you’re old, like me—I
always feel old when the days get shorter—you’ll remember a time when everything
shut down for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Go out for Thanksgiving dinner? What
a turkey of an idea. Go shopping that same evening? There are ball games to
watch, people. But these days we’re thankful for our alarm clock, so we can get
up at 3 a.m. to work our part time job in riot control at Best Buy.
"Don’t worry, ma’am: A
little ventilation will get that pepper spray right out of your new flat screen
TV."
So mom calls, asking if we want to have Thanksgiving the Sunday before, or the Saturday after.
“But mom,” I say, “Why worry about that in August?”
“It’s November, dear.”
“But what happened to
Halloween?”
“Your cardiologist
ordered us not to say you missed it until November 7th.”
“But—the full sized candy
bars!”
The irony is that there
are plenty of reminders that the holidays are approaching. This year I saw my
first store Halloween display in August, and my first Christmas display in
September. It was 90 degrees. Nothing says Christmas like watching a plastic
Santa melt like the Wicked Witch.
“Ho ho oh noooooo!!!!”
Nothing left but a
bubbling pool of liquid on the floor, smelling faintly of peppermint and
gingerbread. It’s enough to make you hit the eggnog.
Maybe my denial about the
approaching holidays is an unconscious response to the cheapening of those same
holidays, the way they come earlier and earlier. It’s not special any more. One
year, on January third, I started poking through Christmas clearance items when
I was stopped by an employee:
“Sir, those aren’t
available for purchase yet—we’re putting up the store display tomorrow.”
It gets confusing. The
Valentine’s Day cupid wears a fur lined red hat, and instead of a bow carries a
little bundle of fireworks. Every time you pass him he says, “Happy Easter!”
and tries to give you pumpkin shaped candy, while waving a sign advertising a
President’s Day sale. On Thanksgiving.
The underlying meaning of
all holidays has blurred into one unmistakable message:
“Give us money, and we’ll
give everyone ‘free’ stuff that will make us all happy.”
Which they stole from
politicians, but never mind.
Thus my idea for a new
federal law: No holiday can be mentioned more than six weeks before the actual
date. No holiday decorations can be put up longer than the time between
Thanksgiving and Christmas. No special sales can be held on an actual holiday,
with the exception of President’s Day, which is a lost cause.
One exception: Christmas
lights can be put up outside while the weather is still good, as long as
they’re not turned on before Thanksgiving. If they’re lit (or inflated) earlier,
it’s open season for anyone with a rifle, paintball gun, blow gun, lawn darts,
or snowballs. Or bazookas. No, that’s overkill—literally.
Our aim should be to make
holidays special again, and you can’t do that if the holiday never goes away.
If you go to the party store and can’t remember if your decorations are
supposed to be red and green, or pink, or red, white and blue, then you’re
doing it wrong.
How do you know if you’re
doing it right? Well, I suppose you’ve got the right attitude if you’re
thankful. If you’re giving. If you’re getting along with people, or at least
trying to. You know, the good will thing.
And if that doesn’t work,
you could try giving me some of your Halloween candy.
For Christmas.
That would be a good federal law.
ReplyDeleteMy Congressman won't even answer my phone calls on this critical issue!
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