Christmas cheer

I suppose there is nothing groundbreaking about letting you know that I, like most of you, feel that Christmas should be celebrated during Christmas.
Trust me, I do not claim to be the first to bring this forward. Little known fact: There are cave drawings of cavemen lamenting the fact that the holiday season had leached over into the mammoth hunting festival.
Christmas coming earlier and earlier and earlier is one of those accepted things now, where everyone enjoys making the observation, myself included.
I did my first observation of the year in the middle of a home improvement store a week before Halloween.
There, surrounded by Christmas decorations stacked to the ceiling and Christmas music ringing through the aisles, I made this lovely announcement to my children: “STOP SINGING CHRISTMAS SONGS!!!”
Plenty of customers turned and eyed me and my grumpy edict to my kids. They also were a little suspect when they then saw me shopping for axes.
A quick side note for those of you who cast those odd looks at me: We came to the store looking for an ax, as mine broke.
When it gets to be fire time, I would like to be able to split the wood in the woodpile, so I would appreciate it if you would not stare at me as though I am homicidal.
But back to the Christmas songs. That is the one thing I can continue to control.
You can throw up enormous inflatable snow globes at every store in the middle of June for all I care.
I can still not allow Christmas songs to be sung until the day after Thanksgiving.
And I can shout it in the middle of a home improvement store, drawing curious stares from other people, in particular ones who don’t see my kids but just see me, several aisles away, shouting, “NO JINGLE BELLS!!!”
I guess am sort of giving into the early Christmas season this year, as I am planning on getting my Christmas decorations put up early this year. Not saying I will turn them on. But I want them up by the time my neighbor’s lights come on.
His house is two doors down, and each Christmas he puts up the most beautiful and classy Christmas display you will see, brilliant and organized, the entire house awash in Christmas cheer.
And it’s always fired up before anyone else’s.
Invariably what happens is I come home one night, turn the corner and see the display. And then I look at the dark void that is my house, and realize that not only am I not showing Christmas cheer, I am actually creating a cheer vortex, where joy and happiness get sucked away into the abyss.
Then I end up trying to decorate frantically at 10:30 at night just to try and light the darkness.
So this year, I plan to bring all of the lights and decorations down from the attic early and start sorting.
First off, I will pull out all of the net lights, the single greatest Christmas decoration invention since that big tube thingee that Christmas tree places use to wrap up your tree in net.
I currently have enough nets to cover the bushes along the front of my house.
However, I have a fairly large azalea bed that, by my estimate, I could cover with about 50 more net lights.
I am fairly certain I will not get the OK to proceed with that acquisition because (a) it will be a little pricey and (b) it will look like my front yard is on fire.
But I will look for some strategic places to put new lights and head out and buy them (pending management approval).
One thing I will NOT do is anything involving the roof line. As I have told you in years past, my roof is no longer a place for lights.
I applaud anyone and everyone who wants to do it at their home. Knock yourself out. Heck, if it means that much to you, you’re more than welcome to come do mine.
And it has nothing to do with heights. Heights don’t bother me, even after I saw my neighbor, while trying to hang Christmas lights, plummet from his roof and break his ankle a few years ago.
Rather, it is the extreme annoyance that I get from having to wiggle the ladder between bushes, and then fight tree branches near the house, and then lean all the way back to reach back to the roofline, only to have the long string of lights pull free of the clasps and go crashing to the ground, leaving me to spread some very un-Christmas cheer through the neighborhood.
Hopefully my early preparation will pay off, and I will be able to sit back and enjoy the true Christmas season.
But if I do it right, once I plug the lights in and see the house light up, it will mean it is officially Christmas season.
And I guess that means I can let the kids sing again.