bangerjim
08-09-2021, 06:19 PM
I wrote this a couple weeks ago and wanted to share it with all.
Holiday Musings
By
bangerjim
July 2021
Recently my wife and I happened in to the local Hobby Lobby store to look for ideas and items for her Sunday School craft times. As she perused the sale shelves and other various assorted craft locations she usually haunts in the giant mega store, I strolled over to the “seasonal” area in the massive establishment. I was taken back as to what I encountered. Immediately, for my buying pleasure, was an isle of “All 4th of July items now 90% Off”. More red, white, and blue patriotic plates, plastic ware, ribbons, signs, streamers, and garland than I has ever encountered this late in July! Well, they gotta make room for the Halloween decorations & stuff somehow, I thought to myself. And so I twirled the spangled spinners, fondled the plastic forks, read the patriotic banners, and thought back (to not so long ago) about fireworks and BBQ’s and brewskis.
As I rounded the corner I was suddenly accosted by rows and isles literally bulging with Halloween items of all sorts: scary pumpkins, orange ribbons, brown leaf wreathes, ghoulish ghosts, wicked witches, black cauldrons, and everything spooky imaginable. Ok……the holiday at the end of October IS only about 3 months away. I guess that makes sense to get the stuff out in plenty of time to get your party planned and house decorated for all the little ghouls and goblins that come begging on All Hallow’s Eve. And all available for a tidy 40% discount. Not too shabby for a penny-wise shopper. I just didn’t remember as a kid doing that much early Halloween purchasing…...…in July. And I WAS a true holiday connoisseur, as most kids are. I kept track, to the exact DAY, just how far each wonderful holiday was away……mainly to figure out when we were out of school on holidays!
Suddenly the next turn went from all things scary to all things fattening…………Thanksgiving had invaded the next 4 isles! Turkey Day decorations and bobbles in July? Here in Phoenix, it’s still 105° outside! Heaven help us. But, yes, there for the taking were orange and brown garlands of leaves, brown wreathes woven from dried up grape branches ready for decorating, fat plump colorful plastic tom turkeys (have you actually seen what the turkeys we eat today look like! OMG!), colorful table settings of magnificent plastic and paper to please any demanding Thanksgiving epicurean, tall & skinny faux-wood plastic carved Indians, and pilgrims ready for the feast that comes IN LATE NOVEMBER, last time I checked! All available again, for a large “pre-seasonal” discount. OK. So now I can buy fall colored Halloween decorations and color coordinate them perfectly with my newly acquired Thanksgiving decorations………all right here, at the same time, in the same store. And just leave up the Halloween stuff! Amazing! Well, on second thought, those severed bloody hands, talking ghoul heads, tombstones, and blinking eye lights might not go over too well at our family Thanksgiving feast! Let alone the picky neighbors and the invasive C&C rules of the nosy neighborhood association. Just a thought to save time.
As I shook my head in disbelief, I shuffled my way down the orange, brown, and gold be-dazzled aisles of every kind of Thanksgiving decoration and item the human manufacturing mind could conjure up to be made in China, I suddenly rounded another aisle corner and was blinded by the flash, not of neon lights as the song says, but of rows and rows of brightly lit shimmering glowing color-changing LED-spangled artificial CHRISTMAS TREES. Yes.....CHRISTMAS TREES! A literal forest of 6 and 7½ foot majestic bulging plastic beauties….the best that modern manufacturing in China could crank out. ( I miss the aluminum trees with the revolving color wheel lighting them!) But, being Hobby Lobby, they did reserve spaces for items celebrating the ACTUAL “reason for the season”, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. YES………………..… Christmas in July had finally arrived!
The following 7 isles were now stocked with every shape, size, and color of Christmas ornament, bobble, bangle, wreath, candle, and sign the mind could imagine and could be made in China. I was shocked to find boxes and bundles of real electric Christmas lights still being made! Not everything has gone LED, yet. And they still all carry the California warning on the box about copper wires and brass plugs causing cancer. At least somethings remain the same.
But…………..NOTHING.....ZERO.....ZIP.....NADA was on sale! Had this mega store chain lost their mind? Who would actually pay full list price almost 6 months before the actual holiday even arrived? But never fear, there were several shrewd women carefully and meticulously trolling the isles with their baskets, grabbing this ornament and that stocking before they were all gone.
Growing up in the Midwest, my signal that Christmas was coming was the welcomed appearance on TV (in late November/early December) of that jolly little Norelco Santa merrily swooshing down the 60’s vintage stop-animation snowy hills and valleys. And all in living black and white. That, and the eagerly awaited Sears “Wish Book” (another relic from the bygone pre-Amazon days!) whose arrival in the mail was mysteriously planned……..just in time for us kids to toil over it for hours, writing and re-writing our prose to the Jolly Olde Elf himself. I always watched for the first toy commercial of the Christmas season, signaling “it was really on now!” Rarely were they ever seen until at least after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, another annual signal that Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Actually, we only had goose once, and it was horrible! My Mom had goose grease for 6 months.
The crunch of the snow under foot. The smells from the kitchen. The fun of making ornaments at school to give to our parents. (I think there is a baby food jar lid “ornament” crusted with red glitter for every year I had school pictures taken!) The eager anticipation of Christmas vacation break from school. YES!!!!!!! The brisk winter mornings with the smell of our neighbors stoking their coal furnaces. The cold long colorfully lit winter nights. The fun of picking out the REAL tree from the grocery lot and decorating it with glowing colorful 120 volt bulbs that would burn you if you touched them. The retrieval of boxes of cherished decorations from the attic and digging into them, each triggering past memories of wonderful bygone Christmas celebrations. Beautiful hand-blown glass ornaments that seemed to shatter if you simply looked at them wrong. Icicles made of REAL PURE LEAD that hung perfectly from the branches every single time. Styrofoam shapes cut out with Mom’s Christmas cookie cutters and decorated with Elmer’s glue and glitter. Strands of popcorn and cranberries and red & green school-made construction paper chains held together with that horrible-tasting white school paste. These traditions all led me to the childhood spine-tingling mysteries of December 25th……..IN December.
Now one can get a pre-lit LED multi-color changing artificial plastic tree for the amazing low price of only $499.00. And more. And have it up in time for the Halloween trick or treaters to enjoy! And decorate it with ghosts, pumpkins, pilgrims, witches, reindeer, turkeys, candy canes, and everything autumn/fall/winter.
I guess I am getting old(er). The cloudy memories of long-ago fond winter holidays are just that, almost lost in the commercialization of today’s marketing frenzy. We remember the good things and bury the unpleasant ones deep in the dusty broom closets of our mind. I just hope I can always keep that bright-eyed kid’s view of the upcoming Holiday seasons. My kids will never experience Christmas quite as I did. I just hope future generations will maintain some semblance of the wonderful festivities. Especially when they just leave up the decorations all year long! :shock:
I hope you all have:
A Happy Halloween
A Joyful Thanksgiving
A Merry Christmas
A Happy & Prosperous New Year
Holiday Musings
By
bangerjim
July 2021
Recently my wife and I happened in to the local Hobby Lobby store to look for ideas and items for her Sunday School craft times. As she perused the sale shelves and other various assorted craft locations she usually haunts in the giant mega store, I strolled over to the “seasonal” area in the massive establishment. I was taken back as to what I encountered. Immediately, for my buying pleasure, was an isle of “All 4th of July items now 90% Off”. More red, white, and blue patriotic plates, plastic ware, ribbons, signs, streamers, and garland than I has ever encountered this late in July! Well, they gotta make room for the Halloween decorations & stuff somehow, I thought to myself. And so I twirled the spangled spinners, fondled the plastic forks, read the patriotic banners, and thought back (to not so long ago) about fireworks and BBQ’s and brewskis.
As I rounded the corner I was suddenly accosted by rows and isles literally bulging with Halloween items of all sorts: scary pumpkins, orange ribbons, brown leaf wreathes, ghoulish ghosts, wicked witches, black cauldrons, and everything spooky imaginable. Ok……the holiday at the end of October IS only about 3 months away. I guess that makes sense to get the stuff out in plenty of time to get your party planned and house decorated for all the little ghouls and goblins that come begging on All Hallow’s Eve. And all available for a tidy 40% discount. Not too shabby for a penny-wise shopper. I just didn’t remember as a kid doing that much early Halloween purchasing…...…in July. And I WAS a true holiday connoisseur, as most kids are. I kept track, to the exact DAY, just how far each wonderful holiday was away……mainly to figure out when we were out of school on holidays!
Suddenly the next turn went from all things scary to all things fattening…………Thanksgiving had invaded the next 4 isles! Turkey Day decorations and bobbles in July? Here in Phoenix, it’s still 105° outside! Heaven help us. But, yes, there for the taking were orange and brown garlands of leaves, brown wreathes woven from dried up grape branches ready for decorating, fat plump colorful plastic tom turkeys (have you actually seen what the turkeys we eat today look like! OMG!), colorful table settings of magnificent plastic and paper to please any demanding Thanksgiving epicurean, tall & skinny faux-wood plastic carved Indians, and pilgrims ready for the feast that comes IN LATE NOVEMBER, last time I checked! All available again, for a large “pre-seasonal” discount. OK. So now I can buy fall colored Halloween decorations and color coordinate them perfectly with my newly acquired Thanksgiving decorations………all right here, at the same time, in the same store. And just leave up the Halloween stuff! Amazing! Well, on second thought, those severed bloody hands, talking ghoul heads, tombstones, and blinking eye lights might not go over too well at our family Thanksgiving feast! Let alone the picky neighbors and the invasive C&C rules of the nosy neighborhood association. Just a thought to save time.
As I shook my head in disbelief, I shuffled my way down the orange, brown, and gold be-dazzled aisles of every kind of Thanksgiving decoration and item the human manufacturing mind could conjure up to be made in China, I suddenly rounded another aisle corner and was blinded by the flash, not of neon lights as the song says, but of rows and rows of brightly lit shimmering glowing color-changing LED-spangled artificial CHRISTMAS TREES. Yes.....CHRISTMAS TREES! A literal forest of 6 and 7½ foot majestic bulging plastic beauties….the best that modern manufacturing in China could crank out. ( I miss the aluminum trees with the revolving color wheel lighting them!) But, being Hobby Lobby, they did reserve spaces for items celebrating the ACTUAL “reason for the season”, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. YES………………..… Christmas in July had finally arrived!
The following 7 isles were now stocked with every shape, size, and color of Christmas ornament, bobble, bangle, wreath, candle, and sign the mind could imagine and could be made in China. I was shocked to find boxes and bundles of real electric Christmas lights still being made! Not everything has gone LED, yet. And they still all carry the California warning on the box about copper wires and brass plugs causing cancer. At least somethings remain the same.
But…………..NOTHING.....ZERO.....ZIP.....NADA was on sale! Had this mega store chain lost their mind? Who would actually pay full list price almost 6 months before the actual holiday even arrived? But never fear, there were several shrewd women carefully and meticulously trolling the isles with their baskets, grabbing this ornament and that stocking before they were all gone.
Growing up in the Midwest, my signal that Christmas was coming was the welcomed appearance on TV (in late November/early December) of that jolly little Norelco Santa merrily swooshing down the 60’s vintage stop-animation snowy hills and valleys. And all in living black and white. That, and the eagerly awaited Sears “Wish Book” (another relic from the bygone pre-Amazon days!) whose arrival in the mail was mysteriously planned……..just in time for us kids to toil over it for hours, writing and re-writing our prose to the Jolly Olde Elf himself. I always watched for the first toy commercial of the Christmas season, signaling “it was really on now!” Rarely were they ever seen until at least after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, another annual signal that Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Actually, we only had goose once, and it was horrible! My Mom had goose grease for 6 months.
The crunch of the snow under foot. The smells from the kitchen. The fun of making ornaments at school to give to our parents. (I think there is a baby food jar lid “ornament” crusted with red glitter for every year I had school pictures taken!) The eager anticipation of Christmas vacation break from school. YES!!!!!!! The brisk winter mornings with the smell of our neighbors stoking their coal furnaces. The cold long colorfully lit winter nights. The fun of picking out the REAL tree from the grocery lot and decorating it with glowing colorful 120 volt bulbs that would burn you if you touched them. The retrieval of boxes of cherished decorations from the attic and digging into them, each triggering past memories of wonderful bygone Christmas celebrations. Beautiful hand-blown glass ornaments that seemed to shatter if you simply looked at them wrong. Icicles made of REAL PURE LEAD that hung perfectly from the branches every single time. Styrofoam shapes cut out with Mom’s Christmas cookie cutters and decorated with Elmer’s glue and glitter. Strands of popcorn and cranberries and red & green school-made construction paper chains held together with that horrible-tasting white school paste. These traditions all led me to the childhood spine-tingling mysteries of December 25th……..IN December.
Now one can get a pre-lit LED multi-color changing artificial plastic tree for the amazing low price of only $499.00. And more. And have it up in time for the Halloween trick or treaters to enjoy! And decorate it with ghosts, pumpkins, pilgrims, witches, reindeer, turkeys, candy canes, and everything autumn/fall/winter.
I guess I am getting old(er). The cloudy memories of long-ago fond winter holidays are just that, almost lost in the commercialization of today’s marketing frenzy. We remember the good things and bury the unpleasant ones deep in the dusty broom closets of our mind. I just hope I can always keep that bright-eyed kid’s view of the upcoming Holiday seasons. My kids will never experience Christmas quite as I did. I just hope future generations will maintain some semblance of the wonderful festivities. Especially when they just leave up the decorations all year long! :shock:
I hope you all have:
A Happy Halloween
A Joyful Thanksgiving
A Merry Christmas
A Happy & Prosperous New Year