Just in time for the holidays

(Picture from here)

The holidays are coming like it or not. In less than a month, the second biggest holiday in the USA will be celebrated, and it's all about dead people and candy. Because dead people and candy go together at least as well as someone rising from the dead and candy.

Now, I like holidays as much as the next guy; really, I do. It's just that the whole basis and meaning and practice of holidays is such a jumble of myths and symbols and rituals that it just seems a skosh weird to me. The pagan traditions were co-opted by the Christians and then the mass commercialization came into play in this century, then the political corrections crept in and the attempt was made to *mainstream* other cultural holidays, and to create new ones for balance... It's gotten out of hand people.

I'm not proposing any solutions here, like the metric system for holidays. But I would like to see things get simpler. I'd like to see holidays in the latter part of the year get separated, and celebrated for just one day instead of a whole month at a time. I'd like to see Halloween decorations for a few days before the end of October, not beginning on October first.

Of course I'm not helping things by participating in the Dickens Christmas Fair, which runs from the day after Thanksgiving to the day before Christmas eve this year. I wouldn't miss it for anything, but it does feel a wee bit premature to pretend that it's Christmas eve on the day after Thanksgiving.

But rest assured that the holidays will come and go, just like every other year, starting on October first and ending in April when the Easter candy runs out. In the middle there will be lots of celebration, Jimmy Stewart movies, eating and drinking, reflection and forgiveness, presents, SALES, travel, family reunions, cards, and lots and lots of candy. (Who doesn't like candy?)