Only On Sunday

Have you noticed that the contestants in the final holiday race of the year seem to have tripped all over themselves, merging into one muddy mass?

Back when I was a kid, the final holiday gauntlet of the year started in early October with Halloween on the horizon. The candy isle at the grocery store tripled in size, filling out with bags of Good n’ Plenty, Tootsie Roll Pops, licorice strings, Necco wafers and other assorted sugary things that would keep the tikes clinging to the ceiling until way past Thanksgiving. Though you could find costumes in some of the stores, that area was mostly a homemade thing. At least it was for us kids. Amazing what you can do with some burnt cork, an old broomstick and last years raggey clothes.

Magically, sometime between the 31st of October and the 1st of November, all that candy on the store shelves disappeared while the freezer section began to fill with huge, frozen turkeys. Other than that, Thanksgiving never really ignited into a commercial frenzy. You might get some additional cans of pumpkin pie mix, a couple dozen of those newfangled, pre-made pie crusts, maybe some dried Indian corn you could make into decorations, but mostly it was just the turkeys basking in the icy cold.

What you didn’t see during the month of November was a hint of Christmas. Not one. No Christmas carol music, no Christmas cards, Christmas presents, Christmas decorations. Nada. It was as if Christmas was so far in the future it was beyond comprehension. The only event of any interest was Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and seeing the cousins you hadn’t seen since the year before. Santa’s appearance at the very end of the parade was the only hint that the final round of the gauntlet was about to begin.

With all that turkey and stuffing and sweet pumpkin pie happily digesting away while you slept, the world transformed again. The day after Thanksgiving was THE big shopping day, or so I understand, mostly from hindsight. I was a kid, then. Kids didn’t do the shopping thing. For us kids, Christmas, and the riches Santa would bring with it, was our only speculation and concern.

With November waning, the music of Christmas began to echo in the streets, and I don’t mean the guady Muzak versions of Christmas songs you hear today. Trees with colored lights and wreaths of silver garland began filling every store. Happy scenes of Frosty the Snowman and Santa and his reindeer transformed storefront windows. Vacant lots filled with Christmas trees. One or two houses on the block would sport tiny lights around windows and doors. The newspapers and TV would announce the number of shopping days left. There were never more than 30.

That’s all changed now. The ghosts and goblins of Halloween share shelf space with Santa and his elves starting in early September. Muzak versions of Christmas songs begin playing everywhere you go. The stores are filled with holiday shoppers long before even the Thanksgiving turkeys make their appearance in the freezers. The booze begins a migration from the alcohol isle to every nook and cranny in the store, eagerly snatched up by patrons who need a little oblivion to make it through it all.

Despite the spirits salubrious effect, the tension begins to mount. Shoppers get snappy. Store clerks take on a harried look. Competition erupts in neighborhoods as homeowners compete to see who can draw the most amount of electricity to their little quarter-acre. Whole city blocks light up like a night time football game.

And the cries of Trick or Treat have barely begun to echo in the night.

I realize my view is probably somewhat tainted, being the difference between seeing the world through the eyes of a child and that of a jaded adult. Still, I think I liked it better before the marketeers got a hold of it all, when Hallothanksgivingmas was three separate holidays instead of one, long arduous one.

New Years Eve, anyone?