Doesn’t it feel like people are ready for Christmas? Every year, it hits stores earlier and earlier – that much hasn’t changed – but most wince at their first peek at the 42 inflatables filling Wal-Mart’s lawn and garden center. This year, not so much.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. Our family loves the season of gift giving and sparkling lights. In fact, I tend to see myself as Clark Griswold, craving an amazingly memorable family Christmas but somehow settling for awkwardly memorable.
I probably sound more like the Grinch, though – short-tempered, grumpy, and a wee bit crazy when things go wrong.
Come to think of it, I guess Clark got his Grinch on in the end too. It’s frustrating to desperately work to give your family an over-the-top Christmas when no one and no thing seems willing to cooperate.
I think, in a way, I dread the season as much as I anticipate it.
But this year feels different.
In the last 24 hours, on Nov. 11, I’ve personally seen at least three Christmas trees already standing. (Yes, one of them is my own, but that’s another story.) Last week, while I was preparing to write about the election, at least two other columnists wrote about Christmas. On Nov. 7.
I was shocked. I was saving my holiday musings for later in the season, but it seems readers are ready now. Christmas music is on the radio, if you know where to find it, the Moscow Ballet’s Nutcracker has come and gone, and this year’s big Christmas movie, The Grinch, released nearly two weeks before Thanksgiving. The line at Route 66 theater was out the door and at least a block long.
People are ready for Christmas, and it seems to be obliging.
My wife and I, driving home from a poorly executed meal of Grinch pancakes at IHOP (they ran out of minty Grinch hot cocoa this weekend, obviously unprepared for the early-bird demand) and spying a neighbor’s lit-up Christmas tree through a window, pondered the reason.
People, we thought, need Christmas a little more than usual this year.
Our country is divided, citizens on both sides are encouraged to be more uncivil and hate each other even more, and the political hackery in all forms of media is out of control.
The whole thing is depressing.
Since the 2016 election, despicable displays have inundated our daily lives. And most of us are sick of it. We need something better. Not a season of discontent, and not a bitter, biting, and acerbic spin on everything – literally everything – that pops up.
We just need a break. We need a season of comfort and joy, kindness and sincerity. We need a little Christmas, and most of us are unwilling to wait. And why should we?
Get on your roof and hang your lights. Put up the tree a week or two early. Go see a Christmas movie, and reach out to friends you haven’t heard from in a year.
Thanksgiving is still coming. You won’t miss the parades, or the turkey, or football. But right now, we need a little Christmas, and I don’t see any reason to wait.
