Author Topic: Merry.... Ah, BAH! Humbug, Everybody  (Read 1111 times)

Monsters For Sale

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Merry.... Ah, BAH! Humbug, Everybody
« on: November 05, 2020, 12:07:49 AM »
This is my 2nd sleepless night watching election results.  (No.  This is not about that.)

I was already bummed about a crappy October where I couldn't even watch my favorite Halloween movies - I was just too depressed over Halloween and some more personal concerns that matter to no one but me.

I was SO anxious to have the damned election over with, whatever way it goes.  I am watching what is going on, on a network that has NOT announced  Arizona for anybody, yet.  (Will it EVER end?)

And now, during breaks,  I am being assaulted with F'ing CHRISTMAS COMMERCIALS!  "HO, HO, HO", my embarrassingly huge butt!  I ain't in no mood for the Red & Green this year.  I'm not wishing anyone "Happy Holidays" - not even the ones I know hate hearing that.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!


I want to be put into medically-induced coma and woken up on October 1st, 2021.  Maybe I can find something to be enthusiastic about by then.
ADAM

BigShadow

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Re: Merry.... Ah, BAH! Humbug, Everybody
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2020, 03:30:04 AM »
Usually every year, a few weeks before Halloween, I like to check out Big Lots and peruse their creepy holiday items.  This year was a major disappointment except for two small blow molds and a haunted house painting that lights up and plays music.  Their selection was rather small and boring.  Then, about a week before Halloween, the display shrunk to a small stand and was surrounded by......wait for it......CHRISTMAS TREES AND DECORATIONS!  They had about 5 or 6 isles full of holly jolly decorations.....but minimal Halloween stuff.

Now I love Christmas, but this is ridiculous.  I still enjoy the fall season well into November and only start getting into the Christmas spirit after Thanksgiving.  But several stores have been pushing Christmas since mid-October.  One local radio station has been playing Christmas music 24/7 since October 1st!  Some cable channels are even showing Christmas movies 24/7 already.  What the heck!?

I'm still going to hold off until after Thanksgiving....so for now it's Bah! Humbug!....Until November 27th that is.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity...

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Mike...In 3-D!

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Re: Merry.... Ah, BAH! Humbug, Everybody
« Reply #2 on: November 05, 2020, 08:52:45 AM »
My friend (and now neighbor) is all about Christmas. This guy goes nuts, as in he had some electric work done to safely accommodate all of his lights. Now that he's my neighbor I got to sit back and watch him get his tree up and fully lit on Nov. 1st. It was pretty impressive.

Christmas stuff used to get me all riled up in my youth when it would start "too early", which I know is subjective. But I think it was because I worked at a roller rink in my youth and the mandate was that once the stations switched to Christmas music, that's what we had to play before, between and after the skating was done. To this day I still can barely stomach traditional Christmas tunes.
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Monsters For Sale

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Re: Merry.... Ah, BAH! Humbug, Everybody
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2020, 01:07:55 PM »
I know it's been said by a million old farts, but...

When I was a kid, in the early 1950's, it was considered tacky to put up decorations or play Christmas music before Thanksgiving.  In our little town, the week before the annual turkey holocaust, city crews would quietly festoon street light standards with unlit plastic reindeer, gift packages, giant peppermint canes, bells, ribbon, faux pine bows, mistletoe and strings of colored lights.  All were dark.

Thanksgiving Day would be spent with aunts, uncles and cousins we had not seen since the previous year's turkey slaughter.  The weather had turned cool and closets and unusually well-made bed tops would reek from the mothballs and cheap perfume saturating older relatives' coats.

Streets were all empty as every one in town had the same meal, with essentially the same menu at approximately the same time of day.  Our Thanksgiving feast was lunchtime.  Guests would stuff themselves more thoroughly than our unfortunate bird.  Then everyone would gather around the TV to watch Macy's Parade while the food settled enough to allow 2nd and 3rd servings of turkey sandwiches, cornbread dressing and pumpkin pie.

When the floats had passed, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger and  Leo Carrillo had ridden by and the cacophony of yet one more high school band had died down, the parade concluded when the final floral dreadnaught bearing an impossibly cheerful Santa Claus throwing tiny peppermint canes to the crowd, disappeared around the corner.  Thanksgiving was officially over.  City maintenance workers busily swept up empty candy cane wrappers and scraped up road apples deposited by our western heroes' mounts.

The "Christmas Season" had officially arrived.

When the sun set that night, all the light pole decorations would illuminate the streets with the same warm glow that makes faces 'round the Christmas tree looks so healthy and welcoming. 

The day after Thanksgiving, all those mysterious crates in store backrooms and placed too high for customers to reach would have been emptied onto eye-level shelves.  Red & Green toys and gift assortments filled every nook and cranny.  Store sound systems played the same old songs as previous years.

The streets would remain lit every night until New Year's Day.  The day after, all of the decorations would be taken down and stored for next year.

The day after New Year's all the neighbors would take down their lights and toss out dried trees.  The kids would return to school.

The pattern repeated every year.  There was a comforting sameness about it all.

The first year I saw "Xmas" commercials in September, I suddenly felt out-of-step and uncomfortable.  It was like there had been an unannounced calendrical adjustment by the Daylight Savings committee.  Of course they were ads for things you had to send away for or construct.  But it still didn't feel right.


After all these years, it still doesn't feel right.  Red & Green should NEVER appear before Orange & Black.
ADAM

skully

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Re: Merry.... Ah, BAH! Humbug, Everybody
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2020, 02:46:03 AM »
I share with you many of those same fond memories, it was basically the same here in Reading Pa. with our Penn Street with all the stores at Thanksgiving and Christmas,  and the Thanksgiving and Christmas meals were truly epic in nature, entire table spreads with all the ethnic foods of my family, everything was home made.  As the years passed by with my family members dwindling, it is now just a distant, but still enjoyable memory that I wouldn't trade anything for.  What I'd give to just go back, even for just one day.

 

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