One season at a time, please
It was 85 degrees the day we received our first Christmas catalogue. The sky pretended it wasn't Christmastime, sweeping its ceiling free of clouds, allowing the sunlight to travel the final 122 miles of its 93 million-mile journey to simply warm my face. But we knew Christmas was near.
The catalogue told us so.
A little blonde girl in a white stocking cap and red scarf grinned from the catalogue's cold, seasonal cover as we peeled off the plastic wrapping. Inside, we found page after page of winter clothes, toys, and ornaments that would one day dangle from someone's artificial Christmas tree. Snow sat frozen in pictures throughout the catalogue, its chill trying to ready us for all the hot chocolate that was coming soon.
Yes, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
My family and I took a walk that day. We wore shorts. The leaves on all the deciduous trees that lined our sidewalked path were deep green with only the occasional hint of red.
The trees didn't know it was time for Christmas. How odd.
A lady at a house down the street stood outside her door as we walked by. She was hanging a wreath of brown, gold and auburn on her door, the colors looking out of place against the sea of freshly cut green grass that spread across her lawn. Although her back was to us, my wife and I waved as we went by. Why not? It was such a nice day.
Teens drove down the street in a mom's car, hip-hop thumping from the car's opened windows, and from somewhere nearby a barbecue poured a plume of grilling hamburgers across my nose.
Yes, it really was a nice day, wasn't it?
My wife and I spoke of the holidays on our walk. What we did for Labor Day, the fact that nobody celebrated Columbus Day anymore, and how we were going to dress our toddler for Halloween. We didn't agree on a costume, but that was OK. We still had a few more weeks.
I was sweating by the time we got home, the sun just starting to nudge the horizon. I looked at the jet plane contrails that decorated the darkening dome of the sky, straining to see if Santa was there, flying by on his one last check of who was naughty, and who was nice.
Me, Santa, me. I've been nice all year.
Back inside, sitting on the couch with our toddler on my lap, slowly shuffling through the catalogue, pausing occasionally at the GI Joe or electric train pages, I thought back to my early Christmas seasons.
Something was different.
It might have been colder then, and I may have played in snow sometime before Mom asked me to go through the Wish Book. Our furnace had been on for a while, too, I guess. I think the bank put out plates of chocolate-covered peanuts for Christmas. And my Halloween candy _ it was all gone.
It must be global warming, I thought, sitting in my living room wondering if we should turn on the air conditioning. That's why Christmas is different.
Or maybe it's just September. Maybe there's plenty of time for bank candy and presents, after-sledding fires and the "Peanuts" special on TV.
Yeah, that was it. It wasn't Christmastime after all. The holidays were just being rude.
Christmas, I love you. Just get off my back.
