Holy Crap! It’s December!

We started out the month by sleeping incredibly late. 9:30 - I think it was. But then we took it easy from there. Coffee, reading in our jammies.

We got serious after that. Put clothes on, even. Had to find a place that still served breakfast at 11 o’clock because we hadn’t been to the store yet and the cupboards were bare.

Then we went to Costco.

Have you ever been to Costco in December? I don’t recommend it. Not even just one day after November. I don’t recommend electronics stores either. It’s just asking for trouble.

You’ll get your exercise, though, walking from the extended off-site parking lot, dodging kids and the ever present cheerful person ringing that infernal bell.

That sounded grumpy.

Christmas doesn’t make me grumpy. It’s the period between Thanksgiving and December 25th that does. It’s the juxtaposition of the two holidays.

• Thanksgiving - a holiday of giving thanks. Ostensibly, for the things we have.
• Christmas - beginning the day after Thanksgiving, a month-long holiday of pursuing all the things we don’t have but desperately think we do.

Here’s a helpful diagram:



(If you can't see the helpful diagram, try this.)

Actually, Christmas begins before Thanksgiving. Around the end of October, I started greeting people with “Happy HalloThanksMas.” The holiday really starts with the two billion dollars* worth of candy we buy in late October. It’s not Santa that excites the kiddies. It’s the freakin’ two-month sugar high.

Oh, well. I try to get along. I put a tree up in our Portland apartment - the little ceramic one with Lite Brites all aglow, and we installed colored exterior floodlights at the Seattle house while it wasn’t raining. Went to the grocery store so now we have food.

I’ll make breakfast tomorrow and then I’ll dig out the plastic poinsettias. I’ll pop in the yule log DVD. Maybe hum a festive tune. If there’s wine involved, I’ll prop up the tree and plug it in.

The magic happens when the tree is decorated and the stockings are hung. Everything changes after that. And if that all gets done tomorrow, why - the Grinch might need someone else to haunt.

*We spend the same amount on Easter candy. It depends on who you ask - I tried to find a link for you - but we spend about the same on candy than federal elections in this country. And Christmas dwarfs them both by a factor of 10. Again, depending on who you ask. As you can see, the Grinch has not yet left me.