Nooooooo!!!!!

Really, nooooo!!! I walked into Long's Drugs on Tuesday -- yes, September 30th -- and . . . Christmas crap!!! Already!!! Give me a break!!! What happened to Halloween? Thanksgiving? The High Holidays? (Well, okay, there's probably not a lot of call for Rosh Hashana stuff in this community, but hey...)

I mean, just seeing the Christmas crapola already up and displayed whipped me up but good! I know that the herd mentality is alive and well, and everyone is running around screeching that the American consumer might not spend deliriously this Holiday season and life as we know it will just suck. I have, for many years, been highly irritated with the fixation and focus on Christmas spending as the driver for contemporary American economy. It just bugs me no end. I mean, this is NOT a sustainable economic model, people. Plus, it really puts an unsavory twist on the holiday, at least for me. Please bear with me while I descend into a rant...

Growing up, my family didn't have a lot of money, but I never, ever felt short-changed at Christmas. But, we didn't go hog-wild nutso crazy, either. In fact, we didn't even put up our Christmas tree until Christmas Eve! I remember when I first moved to California, and saw people putting up Christmas trees on Thanksgiving... It was as odd to me as the Christmas I spent in India -- and THAT was odd! I mean, where's the mystery if your tree is lurking around for a whole month before Christmas morning! I cannot tell you the thrill it was to wake up on Christmas morning, and poof! magically, gifts had appeared under the tree. We'd usually put up the tree early in the day on Christmas Eve, but no decorations were put on until the evening, after dinner. (Sometimes, we'd cheat and put the lights on early, but that was being extraordinarily daring...) I recall some years, my friends from school would come over (they were all Jewish), and help decorate the tree. It was magic. And, the tree only stayed up until Epiphany (January 6th), and then it was all taken down and the decorations put away until the following year. And, by the way, we had REAL trees! The smell was heavenly... The tree would often be bought a week or more ahead of time, and would be put out on the fire escape to stay fresh. Sometimes, if I was feeling wild and crazy, I'd open the window and touch the tree, as it lay in wait... sometimes covered with snow!

I have to tell you that Christmas these days just doesn't have the same . . . pop . . . as it did when I was little. And, I'm sorry, but starting to flog Christmas tchochkas before October is just ridiculous.

OK, sorry for the rant... But it really did whip me up.