Transitioning into Christmas

Autumn is a kind of transition month, summer into fall, fall into winter, but that’s just the weather.

Take sports, more transitions, baseball into football, into hockey. But some transitions occur all at once, as in October when we had the World series ending the baseball season, playing against the midseason NFL and CFL football leagues, and the beginning of the NHL hockey season. That’s a lot of sports.

Then there are the seasonal television shows. As Halloween came closer there were any number of scary movies, horror shows, and references to the ghosts and goblins, supposedly winding down with the big event on the 31^st. Or so one would think.

I participated in a local fundraising bazaar on November 1^st, and expected to have a quiet recuperative day on the Sunday. I was amazed to see some channels still hip deep in the horror genre of films. Cujo and Scream 3 were frequent offerings.

What did surprise me was the number of Christmas movies also being played. Elf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Defending Santa. Please, please, please, tell me we are not going to be inundated with Christmas movies for the next 2 months.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and I have my favourite movies that are a must see over the holidays. Over the holidays, the last few weeks of December, not November.

I’m not an American, but I use the American Thanksgiving as my marker, the earliest marker, for all things Christmas, almost. I refuse to put my tree up before December 1^st, though that’s not such an issue anymore as I haven’t had a tree in years.

The stores have all their Christmas decorations out, alongside the Halloween stuff. Now it will be all Christmas until New Year’s and then maybe we’ll get a wee break before it is all hearts, chocolate and Valentines. But that’s commercialism I suppose.

In some ways I can’t complain, if the store hadn’t been offering Christmas stuff I couldn’t have bought wrapping paper and therefore have a number of my gifts wrapped and set aside.

I may get tired of the movies repeated over and over again, the carols playing in the stores and on the radio, and the commercials constantly flogging the newest must-have gifts, but I think Christmas all year long, shopping wise, as I start immediately after the new year.

I firmly believe in buying the perfect gift when I see it, have learned over time that even if I remember that gift idea, I’ll never find it again. It’s a bit of that...do I have it right...trump as you go.

The up side to that practice is my costs are spread out over the year, the down side, and now that I think about it the down side may outweigh the good. One, I can’t resist that last minute shopping when so many cute things are displayed, and are often on a preholiday sale, and two, I have to store all those early purchases and often lose track of where I’ve stashed them.

That’s why I’m wrapping early, searching through all my usual storage spots so I don’t miss anything this year. I have a few bins I’m putting the wrapped gifts in and will send it all to my son’s, as that’s where we’ll be opening presents this year. It will be his problem, LOL, keeping the kids from the usual touching, and shaking and begging to open just one.