Skipping Thanksgiving...

2:40 PM Elizabeth Seckman 2 Comments

I’m skipping Thanksgiving. Not skipping the food mind you…not even the worst stomach flu can separate me from the indulgence of the turkey feast. I’m skipping the pumpkins and pilgrims and all the rest of the fall colored decorations. I’m taking my cue from Wal Mart and going straight for Christmas. The green and red are going up a week early. The moratorium is lifted on Baby Jesus and Santa. They are allowed to make their move to center stage before the turkey is carved and its bones sent to the trash.

As a matter of fact, I’m liking this idea so well that I’m considering changing up my whole view of the fall holidays. Next year I’m considering bundling the fall holidays…a full merging of Halloween and Thanksgiving with the generic festive fall décor instead of the ghouls, goblins, and pilgrims. Then I can take the full week of Thanksgiving to get out the Christmas trim at my leisure.

Now sure, there are those among us who hate the encroachment of Christmas on all the other holidays, but I’m not among them. I love Christmas. It’s magic in a box of bulbs. Inner peace carried in the scent of pine. And after a hard year, saying good bye to my father and my grandmother, I’m ready for the joy of the holidays, for the assurance that our days on earth aren’t the end of our existence, that the ones we say farewell to aren’t gone, but moved on, moved up to a better place.

Sure, I know retailers bombard us with Christmas just to separate us from our money, but I say bring it. They can spin it, commercialize it, and start it in August and I’m game. There’s magic in that holiday. Magic that can’t be bought or sold because it was given to us as a gift.

Have a blessed holiday…no matter when you decide to begin.