Christmas Time Is (not) Here

I  love Christmas.  I also love Fall and Thanksgiving.  So you can imagine my excitement and sadness when I went to the store Sunday (that'd be the day after Halloween) and saw the Christmas displays.  You can also imagine what went through my mind when I heard the Starbucks red cups were on their way.  It's like everyone forgot about the Pilgrims.  I honestly get very giddy inside then must force myself to get out of the holiday spirit and focus on figuring out why my squash casserole isn't as thick as it is when Grandma makes it.

It's like we're skipping right over the best meal of the year.  Don't get me wrong, I'm already planning my Christmas crafts, decorations, cookies, and ginger bread house, but I'm planning on the inside.  I'm suppressing the urge to listen to Christmas music and instead showing my Fall spirit by dressing in harvest colors and making dishes that contain cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and squash - not necessarily in the same dish.

While I do have most of my Christmas shopping done (I was in the right place at the right time) and have ordered our personalized stockings (you gotta give the knitting lady plenty of notice), I am refusing to purchase stocking stuffers or get out the decorations.  Can you image how painful work must be for those who work at these stores that have already decorated everything in green and red?  I think we should all write our Senators and ask that they pass legislation ordering that Christmas not be mentioned by the retail folks until the day after Thanksgiving.  They'd do that right?  After all, there would be no Congress if it weren't for those thankful pilgrims who took the journey all the way over here and decided to thank God and those Native Americas (I'm going PC for this post) for allowing them to make it through their first winter.

So I beg you, and I really shouldn't have to because I have surrounded myself with people who also refuse to celebrate until the time is right (my family is lucky to put up the tree a week before Christmas), to please embrace Fall and Thanksgiving and suppress those urges to put out your Christmas lights.  People, Christmas is still a good 7 weeks away.  We don't start celebrating President's Day on January 2nd do we?

Oh, and if you think about it, call your Senators and ask them to introduce that legislation. It'll be a nice break from this health care thing they've got going on.