It's Christmas Time Again

Well, it's about a week before Thanksgiving, and I'm pretty sure we all know what that means: Christmas starts to get laid on pretty thick. It's official. Egg nog is in stores. Star 102.5 has started their all Christmas music, all the time stretch, which I believe goes through New Year's day. Stores, obviously have had their Christmas displays out for at least two weeks already (some before Halloween), but they have all started stepping up their displays with Black Friday just ten days away. Lights are on houses. Decorations are up. I'm starting to think about getting my tree (actually, to be honest, I've been thinking about that since September). The season is upon us. Every year this time of year gets here, and every year I hear people who are surprised that it's here so early. People who are legitimately angry that it's here so early. And I honestly don't understand these folks.

Now granted, I love Christmas. It surpassed Halloween as my favorite holiday after I became too old to trick or treat, and it hasn't wavered. There's nothing on earth right now quite like the spirit of the Christmas season. Even if I have become pretty jaded with religion, I still love everything about Christmas. But don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that thinks it's OK to be Christmas all year wrong. I don't. Though I would probably like that, I'm not going to lie. But as a matter of principle, so that the Christmas season doesn't get stale, there needs to be a line drawn. And I don't have a problem with the line being a week or so before Thanksgiving.

When you think about it, it's the perfect time. From a marketing standpoint, it's a week or so before Black Friday, the circulars are going out, and it gets everybody thinking about Christmas, which feeds the collective seasonal desperation to find that one perfect gift. And the music? A lot of Christmas music is synonymous with Thanksgiving anyways, or is at least not Christmas-specific. "Baby it's cold outside" is one, and "Over the River and Through the Woods" (which is actually a Thanksgiving song anyways) is another. And the timing will leave Christmas about 5 weeks away, which is way closer than it sounds. Even if you hate seeing signs of Christmas life so early, you will keep hearing the songs and seeing the lights and eventually, when you're ready, you stop being a douche and start to enjoy the season. And for people like me, who wait for months to start hearing this, well, it gives us five or six good weeks to take it all in. So everyone, stop bitching to me whenever I start to hum a Christmas tune, or think out loud about when I'm going to get my tree (I'm thinking the weekend after Thanksgiving. Seriously) or when my phone rings and it's a Christmas carol (I will wait until after Thanksgiving for that, however. I need to use my Adam Sandler Turkey song ringtone and gobble text alert). I enjoy the hell out of this time of year. The season is starting, the excitement is here, don't ruin it for me.

The last thing I wanted to mention is regarding trees. I found this blog, which is basically about a new way to get your Christmas tree - online, through a company called Green Valley Christmas Trees. Seriously, internet? Look, I've been against fake trees since, well, forever. Not just because you can't experience that beautiful pine aroma, either. It's the whole experience, finding a good tree nursery, picking out that perfect tree, getting it wrapped up, on the car, through the door, and finally into the stand and standing upright. It might be a pain in the ass, but it's a fun pain in the ass. You can only do it once a year. With this, you pick out your tree online, it gets FedEx'd to your house, and someone takes it inside for you. Not only does this take all the work out of it, but there are a lot of intangibles in choosing a tree that you can't take into consideration when you're choosing online. You need to choose what side will be facing forward, you need to eye it up to see the trunk (measuring can only do so much), and you need to thoroughly inspect the trunk to make sure it's straight, and that it will fit in your stand, etc. And when you're ordering the tree on the site, you're given a general picture, not necessarily the one you'll be ordering. So you don't really know what you're getting. And the trees are really expensive. Shipping is free, which helps, but the cheapest tree on the site is $89.95. And it's only 3 feet tall. The taller trees go for between $150 and $250. I paid $40 for my 10 footer last year. They don't even have a tree that tall. Their best is 9 feet tall, and it's $244.99. It might work for the casual Christmas observer who wants to finally try a real tree, but I'm not a fan.

And in the blog, it has a poll asking if you would ever consider buying a tree online. I'm glad the majority sided with me (Never! It's sacrilegious, 58%), but I'm worried by the 33% who said "Why not? I order everything else online". And 9% said "I'll do anything to avoid another traumatic Christmas tree nursery incident". Traumatic Christmas tree nursery incident? What does that even mean? Does it mean your old man blew a flat on the way home from getting the tree, and when you went to help him you spilled the bolts and accidentally dropped the F-bomb?

Because that's not even the nursery's fault.

I will, however, concede the fact that this service is perfect for older folks who can't physically handle getting a real tree, and don't want to puss out and buy a fake, plastic, shitty one. But anyone who is physically able should get out off their asses and get their own real tree.

Well, that's all for today. If you've learned anything at all, it should have been "don't mess with my holiday". I'll try to write again before Thanksgiving, but if I don't, everyone have a safe and happy one.