It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. In October.
Everyone knows that Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love the message, the music and the memories of my sister telling me I wasn’t getting anything under the tree from Santa in 1982 because I wasn’t acting “sisterly” when I chose not to run downstairs at her request to get her a drink and the big bag of cheese Doritos while she timed me to see if I could beat my score from the day before.
I finally caught on after the third time. I raced through her bedroom doorway, excited with anticipation, as Jamie looked at her clear Swatch watch and uttered with pity to her sweet, adorable, naive little sister, “Oh…almost. Better luck next time.”
I digress.
My point is that I love to celebrate the holidays. And I understand that places like Hobby Lobby and Michaels have to stock their Christmas items early. It’s a little discerning to walk in to Garden Ridge in September in order to find a harvest cornucopia for your kitchen table and you have to ask a dude who is stocking garland and ornaments in the front of the store where to locate said copia. But we’ve come to expect that.
This past weekend, while on a quest to find the perfect pair of red shoes, I found myself near the River Oaks Shopping Village. I was surprised to see a huge wreath with a ginormous glittery bow welcoming me to Shepherd Street. I convinced myself that River Oaks must be having some festival and they broke out the holiday decorations for the occasion. As I drove along the street, I noticed red bows on the top of each store front. It soon dawned on me that these jokers have already decorated for Christmas.
This is UNACCEPTIBLE!
The next thing you know, we’ll have people putting up lights on their house and we haven’t even observed Halloween/Fall Festival (pick your poison) yet! And what about Thanksgiving? Do you expect me to eat turkey, watch football and make Indian headdresses out of fall-colored construction paper as I wear a poinsettia sweatshirt and comment on how I’m happy my parents decided to flock the tree this year?
You see? It just doesn’t go together. September is harvest. October is Halloween. November is Thanksgiving. And December is CHRISTMAS!
Now…should you find yourself jonesing for a holiday fix in the months leading up to December, there is ONE exception to the rule. It’s perfectly fine to have a countdown on your computer/Blackberry that let’s you know exactly how many more days until the new Harry Connick, Jr. holiday CD is available for purchase.
This also includes, but is not limited to:
Kristin Chenoweth
Casting Crowns
Shane & Shane
and Straight No Chaser. Watch “12 Days of Christmas” on YouTube. And then buy the CD.
However, you must keep in cellophane wrapping until the day after Thanksgiving.
I’m off the soapbox! Now go out and buy you some Halloween Oreos before they are gone for the year!
AMEN! I just left Town & County village during my lunch break and what do you know…big ginormous Christmas balls! I mean, we just had our first “cool front”…
Same thing going on at the Village. Next thing you know Sunny 99.1 will start playing their “all Christmas music all the time” the day after Halloween instead of Thanksgiving!
I actually bought two Christmas presents and 3 ornaments at Bering’s 3 weeks ago!!! Wasn’t my intent when I went to the store, but when I walked into the Christmas-decorated gift shop, I was a goner!!
I Concur! And I’m glad there is another out there who has the total Fall month-by-month “themes” if you will. This season is my favorite (despite living in Houston there isn’t a fall foliage spectacular to kick start the September harvest) I REFUSE (foot stomp) to let Chriistmas take over Halloween and Turkey/Football Day, (Harvest/Pumpkin Spice candles have to have enough time to set the precedent/mood before the Apple Cinnamon candles get busted out the Friday after Turkey) I’m just sayin. Here’s to the Fall and to Halloween!!
Don’t forget Josh Groban’s “Noel” album! #1 selling Christmas album of all time. It’s phenomenal…
I also agree!!!! I got in a HUGE fight with one of my roommates in law school b/c she wanted to put up Christmas decorations in our house before Thanksgiving – my other roommates could not understand my rage, so I’m glad there are others out there who understand.
I too have been scouring the stores for the perfect pair of red heels!! I found a perfect pair of Anne Kleins at Belk, but they were $90, so I didn’t get them b/c I’m cheap.
I just can’t deal with it either … I mean, here I am way up here in the MidWest and it’s the same B.S.
I don’t want to think about Christmas ornaments when I am looking for catchy Halloween lights and scarey stuff. The isles at the local Menard’s are stocked to the max with Christmas. Love from The Prairie, in spite of my irritation about wanting to enjoy FALL ….. xoxo
Kristen Chenoweth has a Christmas CD? Color me musical!
I am Queen Christmas freak and even I was dismayed to see the Christmas decorations up ALL OVER the mall here in NY while shopping for a Halloween costume for my DD. Um….putting up Christmas decorations earlier than the day after Thanksgiving should be illegal. It’s just wrong. Very, very wrong. Next thing you know they will be combining Christmas specials. Can you just see it?… The great Pumpkin sits down to a dinner of jelly beans and toast with Santa Claus then goes over the river and through the woods to see Grandmother. So very wrong. HallowThanksmas to everyone… and Happy Festivus for the rest of us. Pass the pole.
I’ve been a fan since the days a friend would actually email me your Bachelor Recaps…….seems forever ago! Fellow Houstonian here and when I go “in town” (usually a trip to Central Market), I’m always in shock when Highland Village is lit up for Christmas and I’m still dealing with 2 boys and their halloween costumes!
Avalon has a great Christmas CD too! One of my faves……..along with Charlie Brown Christmas.
Oh, I am right there with you. LL Bean sent out a catalog in September (maybe it was the first of October) with a Christmas scene on the cover. That was all it took for the first “Bah, humbug!” to come out of my mouth. And I LOVE Christmas! But thanks to that darn catalog, the first wave of dread and panic hit. I fully expect to walk into shopping centers within a few years and find them decorated for Christmas.
My words *exactly* when I saw the River Oaks shopping center Oct. 20. We had taken our son out for his birthday. He works at city hall, so we’d picked him up and were on our way to Mi Luna’s near Rice, going down Shepherd. I was absolutely shocked.
And the sight of those Christmas decorations so early in the season still jarred me when we went back…have you ever been to Swirl, near the Kroger in the RIver Oaks shopping mall? More than a dozen frozen yogurts to choose from, and twice that many toppings. You serve yourself, and you pay by the weight of your concoction.
YUMMMMM!!!!
Hmmmm… it’s a little different up here in Canada… I absolutely LOVE Christmas! 6 years ago before my sister or I were married, we were roommates. We had this cute little basement suite, to which we figured we needed to decorate with a cute little Christmas tree. We couldn’t have a real tree, so we were on the search for a cute fake one. Well we found it in Ikea (and sadly they have never stocked said tree again). But unfortunately it was still October. Being that Canadian Thanksgiving had passed (if we want fall weather for thanksgiving I guess we HAD to choose to have thanksgiving in early October!) and with no kids – thus no use for Halloween – we bought the tree. But really, even I who likes Christmas, couldn’t bring myself to decorate the tree -even though it was SO cute – in October. So my sister and I came up with a rule to which I have followed every year since. Here’s the rule: I can start decorating for Christmas on the first day that it snows from November 1st on. If somehow it doesn’t snow before December 1, then by default the tree goes up December 1. In the 6 previous years I have done this, the latest I have ever gone is November 4. Once was November 2 and all other years was on the first. My husband thinks I’m weird to squeel with such glee at the sight of a few white flakes. Of course, we always have snow and we don’t have our thanksgiving so late, so this wouldn’t work for you. If I had a holiday to celebrate closer to Christmas I would share your point.
I’ve already started planning this year’s Christmas and I’m sure the music will be broken out this week. 🙂
Agree completely. It is one thing to see the decorations in the craft stores… but I heard Christmas carols Sat. when shopping at a wholesale place… and I complained. I start earlier every year, but not before mid November!!!
Lincee, I am in complete agreement! Here on the east coast in PA it is the same. Last weekend I was grocery shopping and even the grocery store had trees up as you came in and two aisles filled with toys and Christmas decor. I had the same reaction – it’s bad enough when the Christmas season starts before thanksgiving, but two weeks before Halloween is just ridiculous. Christmas and the holiday spirit are my absolute favorite and it makes me sad to see the commercial side of Christmas start earlier and earlier. The end result is that people will be immune to the change when Christmas does finally get near because they will have been blindly observing the decorations and carols since mid-October!