chelsea cookWell! We have finally entered into the holiday season as the shops have (at last!) gotten into the spirit of the season. Here it is just past Columbus Day and some shops are only now getting their Christmas decorations up. Of course,Halloween decorations have been up since Labor Day, as they should.  I am not too sure as to why we "celebrate" Columbus Day as it is named for one of the most vile characters to ever sail the seven seas. Somehow he gets credit for "discovering" the land now known as America and seems to ignore the fact that complete civilizations lived all over this part of Earth without any help from Europeans.  But... Europeans wrote the history so Europeans got the credit.
But...You got me off the subject again. We were allegedly speaking of holidays. I suppose mankind has celebrated something since there was mankind. We often think of almost any excuse to celebrate something and that is not a bad thing. Life would be dull without reasons for having fun and interrupting the dullness of the same drudgery every day. I must insert here that after I got the job I had wanted to do all my life that it was never dull or boring. Yessir, I was one of the lucky ones. But, that brings us back to our favorite USA holiday of  Hallogivingmass. We have learned how to run these together so the shops can sell more general goods and by New Year's Day we are so tired of all the shopping, crowds, traffic and general disruptions that we are almost ready to get back to the routine of work.
Being an iconoclast, I can echo millions of others who think these holidays and their celebrations should be separate. Why not have a celebration for each holiday individually and not run them altogether? We see Christmas decorations up by Halloween and Pilgrims shooting Indians before that. Ohmygoodness! I meant "shooting turkeys." We know the Pilgrims were peaceful, kind and loving, right? They were perfect neighbors and never made up wild stories to steal more land from the natives. WE know that because the Pilgrims wrote the history.
But then,our USA Thanksgiving is on November 27th and Christmas is on December 25th this year so that leaves about a month where all merchants could display Christmas goodies between our two major holidays. It could be that I am wrong as I made another mistake back about 1955, but I "think" I remember Thanksgiving AND Christmas as being holidays of a religious nature not exclusively dedicated to greed and avarice. But then, I am just a tired, old school teacher so whadda I know?
Before you leave in disgust, I am very much in favor of celebrating these two holidays and we have GREAT family celebrations on both these occasions. We do not do Thanksgiving on that exact day but on a different day as some family members seem to have other families to celebrate with. But it all works out and we all keep the intended spirit of these two holidays.  As an aside, we also have a large family celebration of July 4th to celebrate our country becoming independent for those horrid British. This is our paean of patriotism to our country and it is meaningful and very enjoyable.  Then, at the far end of winter and just before Easter, like millions of others, we celebrate Bunny Cake Day. At present I can count 21 family members and usually 23-24 show up as attendance is required. 24? Two other grandpas show up and sometimes with a friend.  But, to reiterate, we keep Thanksgiving and Christmas separate and give each its proper due. Why is that so hard?
Each Hallogivingmass we read that shops have to make their entire year's profit during the Christmas season. I think there must be something wrong with a system which is this so skewed that eleven months do not count and one frantic "grab everything you can" month makes or breaks a business. How did we get in such a situation where we had to buy at half the shops or our country would collapse? You don’t suppose we are being told some exaggerated stories so we will feel guilty and spend more money? Naw, that would never happen.
Yessir, many times I have been called “old fashioned” and almost out of touch. (OK, I know some students who visited with me in “the office” called me other things.) But that is OK as I believe each should celebrate in the manner good for them. I very, very much enjoy the family days and being together. I know 99% of you won’t, but we would certainly like to hear your thoughts on celebrating the holidays. Please send to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.