First it's the malls and other retailers trying to start Christmas as early as possible, now my neighbors are putting up Christmas lights and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Maybe I'm just a "bah humbug" kind of guy (my wife says I am) but that's just wrong to me. Let's celebrate one holiday at at time. Thoughts?
Depending on what's going on I usually wait until we get a week into December. It's a special day and I recognize it as such even thought it doen't mean the same thing to me as it does to some others. I go out and get a little tree and I ask friends to come over to help. Many things are handmade at that time (paper chains, snowflakes) but some are saved from year to year and come out of their boxes and wads of tissue paper to make another appearance. I know one older couple who have made a practice of giving each other a special ornament each year at Christmas. Now, more than 40 years later, their tree is really quite beautiful. It's a fun tradition. Oh, and I also love the smell of the tree in the house.
We're doing our tree on Sunday. I figure Santa's appearance at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a good enough starting point for the Christmas season.
Re special ornaments: Our office puts up a scraggly little artificial tree every year, which has always been quite beautiful to me because of the uniqueness of the ornaments, which were made or donated. Clothespin Santas, pop bottle ornaments, little bottles of gin, unique paper ornaments, various modes of transportation such as little airplanes, etc. Unfortunately, during our last realignment of office spaces (I work at the Pentagon) we lost these ornaments in the shuffle. They are irreplaceable; many of the donors have retired or moved on, and the ornaments served to remind us of the good times that we had with them.
I was suppose to close on a new condo on the beach on 12/10 but there is a delay with the title. Crushed my spirit!
