Anybody else disturbed seeing Christmas all around them already?
Okay, listen, I’m no Scrooge. I love Christmas as much as the next person, but in October?? Seriously?? Are you kidding me right now??? STOP. Just STOP. We haven’t even had Halloween yet. I mean how bizarre is it to go into a store with pumpkins and hay bales on the outside, and Christmas trees, and ornaments on the inside.
Stop this crazy bus, I want to get off.
I mean it, I’m not even kidding. Who’s bright idea out in the retail world thinks that putting up all the Christmas stuff before Halloween, and before the Americans (not that we’re using them as our bench mark of what’s right or wrong anymore)have celebrated their Thanksgiving. It’s just wrong. Flat out gross actually.
It’s wild to me how our world, how giant retailers, have got us wrapped around their fingers. It’s like they rush us through every single moment in time; leaving us no time to revel, or bask in the experience of just having celebrated something. Nope, no giving thought to what a lovely family time was had celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving with family and loved ones, less than two weeks ago. Nope, none of that, hurry on up, you don’t want to miss out on buying more Christmas shit for a holiday that is TWO MONTHS AWAY. Hell it is more than two months away it is still 66 days away, so that’s like two months and six days. You know what happened when I googled; how many days until Christmas??
How many days until Halloween popped up first.
Yeah. That’s right. Of course it did, because Halloween is FIRST, it hasn’t even happened! Yet here we are, most of the Halloween displays are done and dusted. They have made room for fake fir and balsam trees and shitty ornaments made in a factory in some far away land where I’m confident they all think we’re insane. And I have to say, I don’t think they’re that wrong about us Western folk. It’s still 25 degrees in Toronto, the leaves are barely starting to change colour and yet here we are…rushing to Christmas. Dumb, and embarrassing.
Listen I’m not down on Christmas, not at all. We decorate almost every square inch of our house, well all the square inches that YB will stand for. We begin the moment Mikaela gets off the plane, which is usually mid-December, and leave it up for a week following New Years Day. But that’s it man. That’s all the Christmas I’m willing to have in my life; three weeks max.
But it’s not even about the people, and you know who you are, who long for holiday after holiday that bothers me. What bothers me most are, like I said, the retailers who seem hell bent and determined to rush us, all of us through life. And worse than that, create a society that doesn’t know how to just be in the moment or even experience the memories of moments past. Like come on retailers, LET US LIVE. Let us be present. Stop creating forced consumerism by hopping from New Year’s Day banners/hats and crap, to Valentine’s Day then straight to St. Patrick’s Day and on to Easter then you pull out all summer gear we need for our patios, run us straight into July 1st and 4th of July holiday crap, and then it’s Back to School (which lately I have to point out is on the shelves immediately after the July 1st holiday, kids have been out of school for a week! Take that in!) Then we’re straight into Thanksgiving, and often Halloween in tandem cuz you know they have to be ready to pull Halloween before it even happens to make room for Christmas. And then, YAY, they start it all over again before Christmas has even been had. Like just typing this made me crazy. Think about living it, and what it does to us on a soul level!?! Yuck.
I remember one year I needed garland for our tree, which we usually put up mid-December. This tree was significantly larger than any that we had before, so we were really short on garland. I thought; “cool no problem I’ll just run out and grab some more.” Got to the store and all the Christmas shelves were gone. Not an ornament or string of garland to be had. We were a week out from Christmas and they had already taken it away. I was stunned, and ended up with a funky, (not in a good way)half naked tree. Which got me thinking; “wouldn’t it be great if we could just live in the moments and special occasions of life as they’re happening, rather than being dragged and rushed through them with hooks in our mouths, barely even living them, never mind experiencing them, by big business???”
It’s sad to say this, but I doubt we’re ever going to go back to slowing down in life, if anything I fear everything will just get quicker and quicker, the special holidays in life will cease to be three or four days of families shutting down, reconnecting and just being. As it is many stores and restaurants aren’t even closed during what used to be consider sacred holidays anymore but a girl can dream for simpler times can’t she???
