FALL HAS ARRIVED, and after a summer filled with hot, dry weather, Switzerland County is finally seeing cooler temperatures.
You know what that means — start your Christmas shopping now.
Maybe it’s global warming; or maybe its the ozone layer; but it seems to me that there is very little “spring” and “fall” anymore; and much more “summer” and “winter” than we care to have.
Our weather seems to be unseasonably hot until we get a foot of snow; and those moderate days of mild temperatures get more and more rare.
I miss those days.
Give me a crisp fall day, sun shining just enough to take the chill off of the afternoon; and I’m a happy guy. Give me a spring afternoon when you finally get rid of the sweaters and heavy coats of winter, and I’ll take a year’s worth.
But as the seasons more and more blend into each other; so do the holiday seasons.
It’s early October, and here and there you see Halloween decorations for both inside and outside your home. You may also find an aisle with some Thanksgiving decor on it — about six weeks away — and you’ll also see some familiar items.
Santa Clauses and evergreen trees and stockings and reindeer are already popping up in stores all around. With Christmas more than two months — and two holidays — away, does it strike anyone else as strange that we are already being tempted to start stocking up on stocking stuffers?
Now there are some people who like to get their holiday shopping done early; and I guess that’s okay; but is it really necessary to buy a Christmas tree now? Maybe you can sit you Jack-O-Lantern on one branch and your turkey on another.
I would prefer that I’m given my holidays one at a time, just like my seasons.
If this trend continues, on December 26th we’ll all be able to buy Fourth of July decorations and fireworks.
That’s what we’ll reduce ourselves to — two holidays: Christmas in the winter and Independence Day in the summer.
Just two, nothing in between.
Like my seasons, I want a little Halloween and Thanksgiving before I hit Christmas. I like to celebrate New Year’s before having to buy a box of Valentine’s Day candy.
Memorial Day is one of my favorites; but we tend to race right by that one as we head toward summer; and Labor Day is a good holiday because we get a day off to purchase our Easter eggs early.
So give me autumn and give me Halloween.
Let me cool off from summer before being frozen by winter. Give me the pleasure of seeing the leaves turn thousands of colors before falling off and being raked up. Let’s watch a football game in a temperature that suits the sport — not summer heat and not winter white.
And give me all of my holidays. I’m not ready to purchase a blow up lawn Santa just yet.
I haven’t even gotten the turkey out of the garage, yet.