I’m not sure when or how it happened, but apparently it takes four months to get ready for Christmas and retailers are happy to get us started. My first clue was when I discovered wreaths and sparkly ornaments positioned right next to the barbeque grills in Kmart. In a single shopping trip I could conceivably buy a new lounge chair to stick by my pool, a snappy bathing suit and a pre-lit Christmas tree. My husband and I used to begin negotiations on who had the abysmal job of stringing the lights on the tree in August. It was like a long-running game of poker that both of us hated to loose. Then they came out with the pre-lit tree. Just put the three pieces together, plug them in and turn the box of ornaments over to your kids. That year I was sure that the biggest problem I’d have left was redecorating the tree after the kids put all 300 ornaments on the bottom third of the tree. Three years of owning our pre-lit tree and we’ve had to replace sections of lights that have broken. Now my tree weighs 200 pounds and is covered in enough wire to alarm a bomb squad.
But here I am, two weeks before Thanksgiving and I’ve spent two days decorating my house for the holidays. I’ve packed up seventeen boxes of my regular décor and replaced it with Santas and sleighs and a bunch of musical decorations that my daughter has been playing non-stop since nine o’clock this morning. I swear if I hear “Jingle Bells” one more time I’m going to slit my wrists. There’s a reason that suicides increase during the holidays—it’s because there hasn’t been a new original Christmas song to enter the radio play-list since 1964 when Rudolph’s singing snowman graced our black and white TV’s.
It’s such a pain to be jolly. My back hurts, I’ve got artificial pine needles stuck in my hair and I’ve moved more furniture and boxes than when I moved into my dorm room my freshman year of college. I’m really thinking that I should just bag it next year. I hear that people actually take cruises over Christmas so that they don’t have to buy into the commercialism of the season. Apparently it’s less commercial to listen to a kettle-drum band play a reggae version of “Who Let the Dogs Out” while sipping a $15 pina colada, than it is to exchange some sugary treat with everyone you know so that you’ll have friends in the Zumba class at the gym next year.
All I know is that I’m glad it’s all up and that we’re officially holly and jolly. I’m even going to plaster a smile on my face when my children hand me wish lists of presents that would triple the national deficit if I actually bought all of them. I’m going to do all of this because Christmas is for children—even if it is a glossier, more expensive version than before. I walk into the room that now holds the Christmas tree and my heart jumps to my throat. My two youngest children are sitting cross-legged in front of the tree whispering and giggling. They’re so excited that they can’t sit still. I can hear them talking about their favorite thing about Christmas. To my surprise I’m hearing things like “sipping hot chocolate” and “riding around looking at lights,” and I’m reminded that I actually love Christmas because of my kids. I smile and relax, knowing that I have two whole months to enjoy magic moments like this, and then I hear a loud pop as another strand of lights dies on my already decorated tree.
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