Last week was Halloween. I know it was Halloween because there were a bunch of children of varying ages in costumes lined up outside my front door asking for candy.
My wife and I remember what it was like on Halloween when we were kids, so we try our best to be the Cool Candy People. You won’t get raisins at our house. No trail mix will be doled out. At our house, you will get Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, and such. If you’re lucky, it might be the year we go all out and get the full-sized stuff.
This year it was a successful Halloween, not just for the kids, but for us as well. We had plenty of candy left over for us to eat. That’s always a plus.
Now that Halloween is over, it’s time to move along to the next major holiday. Of course, the next one involves eating as well, but not so much candy. Now that we are in the start of November, our attention should be turning to Thanksgiving.
It is in our house.
We are already planning the meal, making sure the invites go out to the usual suspects, etc. We look forward to Thanksgiving each year and each year at our house it becomes a little larger, but that’s just fine with us.
Within the last number of years, however, Thanksgiving is all but ignored. In most places it seems, once Halloween has passed, it’s the Christmas season.
Don’t get me wrong, folks. I like Christmas as much as the next guy, but I am in no hurry to hang the lights and trim the tree.
One of the fast food places here in town is already decked out in festive lights and to me it looks more like Las Vegas than the holiday season.
The other night it was over 70 degrees out and I was in shorts with my car windows down driving past a place ready for Santa Claus. I still can’t get used to seeing big paper snowflakes when I am wearing a polo shirt and boat shoes. It’s just, well, wrong.
Many moons ago, I worked retail at Christmas and we started our big rush after Thanksgiving. There were no big Black Friday events. The day after Turkey Day was just another Friday.
Nowadays, it’s a holiday on its own.
I have heard people wish others a “Happy Black Friday.” It sounded dumb the first time I heard it and it still sounds dumb. They might as well be saying “Happy 20% Off At Your Local Jiffy Lube Day.”
As long as we are celebrating retail sales days, I can’t wait to see how my family celebrates “Meat Week” at Piggly Wiggly. Nothing is more joyous than getting the family together to decorate the chuck roast and sing Meat Week Carols.
I’m no grinch, mind you. I love the holiday season. I love the things that come along with the holiday season. However, I like the fact that the holiday season used to be short — about a month. This made it special and wonderful.
I don’t want Christmas for six months. I don’t want Christmas for two months. I always thought the 12 Days Of Christmas was a little goofy, but I’ll take what I can get.
I used to know a family who would get their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve during the day, decorate it that night and by the first of the new year, it was gone.
My wife and I traditionally decorate on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That gives us plenty of time to argue when we are untangling the lights from last year when we swore we put them away neatly last year, threaten divorce, call each other by the names of our respective reactionary parent, and resolve everything over eggnog.
This is not my “Christmas Column.” Those of you who have read this column for the last six years know what the Christmas column is all about. It will be forthcoming in the next few weeks. The next column will appear the week before Thanksgiving. That should give me some time to think of something to write about.
To the gentleman who commented on social media that this column received two awards was “cute,” I invite you to send me some ideas of what you would like to read in the column and I might just take one of your suggestions. You just might find yourself with a shared byline in the paper. It might be difficult to see from the geographical location of your head, though.
Award-winning columnist Joe Weaver, a native of Baltimore, is a husband, father, pawnbroker and gun collector. From his home in New Bern, he writes on the lighter side of family life.
