It’s hard not to feel a little bah-humbugish about the holiday season. It has become a cliche for people to decry the start of holiday creep earlier and earlier into the year, particularly now that the once-unimaginable Halloween barrier has been breached. (Can you believe that American Thanksgiving was once considered the start of Christmas season? And people probably complained about how early that felt?)
Paul's house
When I was a boy, I couldn’t understand why adults would complain about the Christmas season. Did they have something against time off, tobogganing and receiving presents? Of course, once you get older you realize that most working adults only get two weeks off if they shatter their tibias during some ill-advised snow-tubing and that somebody actually has to buy those presents. Then there’s the march of holiday parties, office parities, travel, family dinners, small talk. Like most things about adulthood, the holidays become an endless string of obligations stretching from here to the horizon.
THAT BEING SAID, holiday decorations always get me. When I was single and living away from home, my Grinchy heart would grow several sizes when I’d travel back home and see that glowing tree in the front window. My parents would drape wonderful-smelling boughs over the mantle and string lights throughout the house. It was a wonderful, warm environment I hope to be able to recreate some day for my children, along with the annual tradition of going to a local parking lot, picking out a tree, tying it to the roof of our car, and then having that tree fall off the roof on the way home.
Squiddy; the tree and other decorations
Currently, I'm about a third of the way there. In the nascent days of my independence, my roommates and I did precious little holiday decorating (we did precious little decorating full stop, but that's another matter). Now, pre-kids, my wife and I reside in a ‘cozy’ apartment that does not allow for the big, real tree of my childhood, but we're revving up. Each year we buy an adorable miniature Christmas tree, decorate and cover it with lights, and try in vain to keep it alive. Dumping a brown, dried-out miniature Christmas tree into the compost has become it’s own mid-March tradition, but no matter. Baby steps.
We also have a string of vintage-looking brass bells that we hang in our living room doorway, which has the bonus effect of warning us when a tall person is coming in the room, and a jolly little scarf-wearing squid ornament named Squiddy.
It's still precious little, but it makes me feel better about the looming season. It's the start of our own homey holiday feeling, which is why holiday decorating is important. As is eggnog with Sailor Jerry's.
Are you there yet? Who is the custodian of that 'holiday feeling' in your family?
See our Holiday Guide for more Ideas!
Paul Beer is a Toronto writer, actor and comedian. You can follow him on twitter @pauldanielbeer. Read his posts every Friday on Slice.ca.
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