Christmas Season

I should do this. I keep being disappointed by finding blogs that I start to read, enjoy, and then find out sooner or later that they haven't been updated in months or years.

I got derailed by a serious post that I tried several times to write and just couldn't make work. I don't mean serious as in some big personal thing, I just meant serious as in Thought.

So frivolity is the rule for the day. Which fits the time of year.

For me Christmas starts on Pearl Harbor Day (December 7th). I picked that as a date because a) I can remember it, and b) it gives me a good 2-1/2 weeks (three if you go through New Year's) of Christmastime, which seems like plenty to me. I like Christmas, but it's like maple syrup; there's enough and there's too much.

So that's when the decorations come out, if I feel like doing anything, and when I load the music on the MP3 player, and so forth. It's when I get ready to send out Christmas cards, if it's a year that I'll be doing it. Some years when I feel poor I just send emails. This year I think I still have a lot left over from last year so I'll just be sending those, if I can find them.

In my obituary, my life will be boiled down to the catch-phrase, "it's around here somewhere."

The other day I took an online poll, since I'm with a service that pays me a pittance every time I take one (enough that I can get an Amazon gift card about once a year). It asked me about my attitudes about Christmas. Mostly I'm pleased with it. I do growl when I see Xmas stuff up before Thanksgiving. The Xmas-season-starts-the-day-after-Thanksgiving concept goes back to my childhood; I don't agree with it but I'll compromise over it (I think it should start on Pearl Harbor Day, or the day after). But before Thanksgiving is unconscienable.

I said my pet peeve was listening to people bitch about it, particularly the ones who lament the loss of the True Meaning of Christmas. Most of people I know who do that are the most material; it's a "you made me hit you" mentality. Eat me; if you don't like it, don't do it. Do you resent giving too many gifts? Stop giving gifts, at least to the people who shouldn't get gifts.

I've got a no-gift-exchange treaty going with most of my friends so it works out nicely. A couple people think I'm Scrooge, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.