Thursday, November 08, 2007

Santa and Cupid and Pilgrims and Skeletons Should Not Touch Each Other

I really want to put my Christmas music in the cd player but it's way too early. I heard carols in the supermarket tonight and my whole being cried out, "Too soon! Too soon!" even while I was singing along.

The thing is, when we do things too soon, by the time it's really TIME, we're tired of them.

I think we need to separate our holidays again. No more Halloween merchandise rubbing shoulders with Thanksgiving merchandise rubbing shoulders with Christmas merchandise rubbing shoulders with Valentines.

I don't like to walk down a store aisle and see skulls and sinister ravens touching Pilgrims and cornucopias. I don't like to see Santa and Cupid touching each other. Tinsel and sparkling ornaments should not be sharing shelf space with fake gourds and orange silk leaf garlands.

Honestly? I think we would all enjoy and appreciate the individual holidays a lot more if the individual holidays were individual. As it is, a lot of the personality of each holiday is gone. Some things should never be mixed together.

And the fact that a real holiday lasts only a little while makes it even more special. The anticipation is most of it, but if we're pummelled with the prelims for too long, we get tired of it before the actuality even gets here.

Already, I've seen lighted trees and decorated houses. Too soon, people. Too soon. The sight of your lights won't mean anything if we see these things before their time.

Fleeting. That's what holidays are really meant to be. The warmth and glow stay with us a lot longer if we don't have to look at the fake glow for too long.

I think we have lost the art of anticipation.