The Mall Decorations Went Up in October...
I'm still not quite into holiday mode.
I mean, sure, I'm thinking about the holidays; planning menus (at least, in a preliminary sense), thinking about what gifts to get for which loved ones, making sure I know where the holiday movies and music are, but I haven't kicked into full-blown holiday posture just yet.
I know people who see the day after Thanksgiving as the gateway to Christmas-land. The tree goes up on the third Friday of November; the Christmas carols CD gets popped into the car stereo (my sister does that one), and all the holiday sweatshirts with
the santas and stockings and festive snowmen are worn with abandon (my grandmother and mother-in-law do THAT one). Me? I'm not a "rush headlong into the holidays" kind of gal. I'm not a scrooge, by any sense of the word, but I'm not all that eager to rush to - or through - the holidays. I sort of approach it the way I do good, expensive chocolate. Take a tiny nibble off the corner and savor it.
I went into the basement the other day and brought up the poinsettia spray that I hung on the front door, replacing the autumn leaf wreath that's been there since school started. That's enough, for now. The Chili family will go a tree-huntin' sometime around the second weekend in December, and that's when it will really start to feel like Christmas to me. We get an ENORMOUS tree every year (we can, thanks to the high ceilings in the great room). It's right around that time that I'll agree to play the movies and the music that go along with the holiday, and I stop rolling my eyes at everyone ELSE'S decorations that have been up for almost a month already.
Everyone has their own way of approaching this time of year, and I certainly don't begrudge someone else's enthusiasm for the holidays, I just prefer to take mine slowly, and to enjoy it a lot for a short time, rather than a little for a long time...
posted by Mrs. Chili at 10:43 AM
7 Comments:
Every year at our house we say we aren't going to bother to get a tree this year, and then we go out about a week before Christmas and get one. That's when i'm ready.
But this year we aren't going to get a tree.
Ok Mrs. C, I resent the fact that you said I put my Christmas cd in my car. I DO NOT listen to cd's. I did however listen to my Chrismas play list on my ipod..
I love Christmas music and could listen to it for 2 months before and not get tired of it.
Oh. Sorry. I stand corrected. Carols on the iPod are SO much better than carols on a mere CD!
This is one of the many things about which you and I differ. I have a twenty-five day tolerance for Christmas carols that begins right on the 1st of December and ends around nightfall on the 25th.
I wonder why we're so different in this?
I am capable of getting really depressed by all the crap at Christmas--but I like Christmas. It's the crap.
I haven't been to a mall for anything I need in years--maybe once or twice. Tonight I went to one for shoes and a haircut. I couldn't find either. It was a horrifying experience. Macy's! My God. I remember when my grandmother used to take me to Bambergers (which is now Macy's). It's almost like you had to dress up to go there.
Look! I'm digging myself into a psychological hole!
I have a big job interivew tomorrow. Send positive vibes please.
I forget... You worship at the throne of Sarah MacLachlan too, right? Did you know she released a Christmas cd this year? I have it, but I haven't listened to it... it's still too early (sorry, auntie!).
Heh. I JUST downloaded it from iTunes yesterday - along with the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas....
I have found, as I'm sure you all have, that the magic of Christmas has disappeared for me as I have grown older. Once upon a time Christmas was a special day, a day that quite literally FELT different. No more. I am hoping to recapture at least some of that magic through my son when he grows old enough to realize what Christmas is - or at least what it should be.
Nevertheless, I go through certain rituals every holiday season in hopes of rediscovering that magic. I listen only to Christmas music from December 1st through December 25th. No WHEB, no WEEI, no other audio entertainment of any kind, only Xmas music. The tree and other decorations go up December 1st. My wife and I take a day off together, pull the mattress, pillows, and blankets off the bed and set them up on the living room floor and do nothing but watch Christmas specials and movies all day, usually accompanied by drinking coffee and hot chocolate and eating breakfast foods all day.
I find myself hoping for snow, because there is no Christmas to me unless it's a white Christmas. I take certain routes to my parents' place when I go to see them because certain houses along the way have decorations that have become almost iconic to me. I'm just a sentimental old softie, I guess. :)
Going back to the music and specials for a moment, I'm curious to know what all of you consider to be classic, can't miss holiday songs or specials or movies?
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