Remember when Christmas stuff didn't come out in the stores until after Thanksgiving? Now the stuff is out at Halloween time! What do you think about that?
I was beginning to think that I wasn’t remembering my childhood as clearly as I thought! Much to my relief, yes I do remember when Christmas trimmings didn’t come out until after Thanksgiving! It’s not my imagination. I also think that might be way it seemed such a long time until Christmas. But, oh, the anticipation!
I used to love to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Us kids loved the floats and balloons but we all waited for one thing: to see Santa Claus! I used to thank that Mr. Macy brought Santa down from the North Pole. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade heralded the arrival of Santa Claus.
The towns would decorate the street lamps, traffic lights, and poles with lovely Christmas trimmings. Most of the decorations involved bells and wreaths and they were just so lovely, especially at night! I’d listen for Christmas carols on the radio. As it got closer to Christmas, the music was played more often.
The rest of us folks got busy with our own decorations and trimmings. I remember that we didn’t go and get our tree until December 19th – a sort of birthday present for me. I loved to help trim the tree! It was so much fun putting the ornaments on. I never had to do lights or icicles – my father always put up the lights and my mother would wait until all the ornaments were up on the tree before putting the tinsel on.
In Sunday school, we’d get busy learning our scripture verses. Every year we put on a Christmas pageant which involved telling the story of Jesus’ birth. That was the reason we had Christmas. Santa and presents were just the icing on the cake.
When I got older, I loved watching the Christmas movies and specials as we got into December: A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Red Skelton, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Jim Nabors, Glen Campbell, and so many others had Christmas variety shows. There were the classics in movies: Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life and – the one that scared me the most – A Christmas Carol (the Alistair Sim version!). When I got into high school, there were more TV-Movie-Christmas specials like The Waltons and The House Without a Christmas Tree.
Going out at night was a treat because everyone had their lights up and they were just so beautiful.
I think that was around the time that Christmas began to arrive in the stores earlier and earlier. I didn't mind, but I remember hearing people complaining about it. "We haven't even had Thanksgiving yet!"
This weekend, one of the radio stations (Sunny-104) in Philadelphia played Christmas music round the clock.
All the stores have all the their Christmas displays up.
In a way, it’s depressing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Christmas season. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to begin celebrating so far in advance. Why? The decorations and the music becomes old and boring. Not only that, but it seems like everyone's lost sight of Jesus' birthday. I mean, who ever heard of a 2 month long birthday party?
I would like to enjoy the fall a little longer. I like the harvest decorations of Thanksgiving. I don’t think I’ve seen much of that anywhere except in craft stores. It seems the more variety, the more fun the season becomes. I used to have such anticipation of seeing the decorations change from pumpkins to turkeys and horns of plenty to silver bells and wreaths. Now you pass the same holiday stuff for weeks and it becomes so ... ho-ho-hum.
Does anyone know why we’re celebrating Christmas anymore?
I love one of the newer movies, A Christmas Story. It’s about this mischievous little kid that wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. So he spends his time plotting a way to convince his parents to buy this thing for him. There's no spiritual meaning to Christmas in this movie at all. It’s all about getting presents, presents, presents. I love the movie because it’s funny and it really does reflect how a kid thinks. The only difference is that when I was little, I realized that getting presents was not the reason we were supposed to celebrate Christmas.
Do kids understand that anymore?