Last week, I was kind of in the dumps. During an end-of-the-week telephone conversation I told Lily that “I need a little Christmas, right this very minute.”
Man, I would love to take that back.
This Saturday (mind you, the day after Halloween), J and I went into Target to pick up a few things. My God! It looks like Santa threw up all over the place.
Everywhere. Christmas. I actually started hyperventilating.
This is not to say I don’t like Christmas. On the contrary, I enjoy it very much.
Mostly, I relish the quiet times when we’re just hanging out. My favorite part of the day is Christmas morning, right after all the presents have been opened, before the company arrives (and the madness begins). It’s the relaxed part of the day when we sip our tea, chat a while and soak up the atmosphere: the beautiful tree, the lingering aromas of fresh baked cookies and seasonal potpourri.
I guess it’s the pre-holiday frenzy that wears me out. The days leading up to Christmas are an orgy of eating and spending – two things we should all probably do in moderation.
I also suppose some small part of me misses that rush of post-Thanksgiving excitement.
When I was a kid, we used to spend Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house. In an effort to make me feel included and oh-so grown up, my grandmother always gave me a few little tasks to do. After arranging the cranberry sauce in a fancy cut-glass tray, I would decorate the table. Typical decorations would include some paper cut outs and homemade napkin rings I made in school. When all this stuff was done, I would join grandpa in the living room, stretch out in front of the big old wood-encased RCA television and watch the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day parade.
We all loved the dance numbers and the colorful floats. (One year, one of my relatives, a Broadway dancer, actually appeared in the live broadcast. Man, we were tickled! As I recall, it was a decidedly icy day, so the gestalt factor was high as we watched him deftly negotiate the slippery pavement.) However, one of the most memorable parts of the parade was the last five minutes. This marked the yearly debut of Santa Claus.
Grandma, upon hearing the applause and the Christmas music, would inevitably pop her head out of the kitchen, dish or towel in hand and say, “You hear that? It’s the official start of the Christmas season.”
Forget about Target. I’m going with my grandma on this one.
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