OK, look! I'm not anti religious for God's sake I'm an ordained interfaith minister mainly of the Christian persuasion and I absolutely LOVE Christmas... BUT... I most certainly do have a problem when my favorite "holiday," aka Halloween is rudely interrupted by Christmas trees, lights, music, etc...since we've taken the kids(Rebecca and Ian and now those two plus Keira) to Sam's Club to 'trick or treat' for the past nine years, LAST year was the first time we had EVER heard/seen Christmas stuff up and roaring on Halloween. YES! You heard me; the shit was up on Halloween...It's kind of a buzz kill, ya know whatta mean? I mean, come on! The "supposed official" decorating/celebrating day for Christmas is/was the day after Turkey Day. I remember being so excited over Thanksgiving weekend getting all the Christmas crap out of the attic, putting up my mother's horrible off white Christmas tree(I say off white as it WAS white but my dad smoked two packs a day, so....) and decorating it and watching either the Wizard of Oz or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the background, feeling all happy, kid-like and holiday-ish...holiday-ish...like Spanish, Jewish, Druidish....Choo-ish...for Heather, btw....

Now I can understand everyone in the retail business wants to get a head start on this Christmas spending as we can attest. We, as a matter of fact participated slightly in Christmas shopping(and I refuse to say "holiday shopping" because it is the holiday season, yet I celebrate "Christmas," thank you very much...). I heard from several retailers they are not buying as much, IE, having a big inventory for this season as for the past few years they've been stuck with so much inventory they weren't able to get rid of half of it by the time they held their 60% off sales...which I found quite interesting not only for that "fact" but the "fact" that these retailers were revealing so much to me. Must be my reverend/pastoral persona/aura that made them just blab it out.

ain, I understand the commercialisation of Christmas, but does it really need to impede on my Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays? Do I have to suffer as my precious autumn, my favorite season, aka the season of the harvest(andseason of the witch according to Donovan), the season of cooling winds, the scents of burning wood in the crisp cool air and luscious colors of the leaves on trees have to be therefore erased.... in the spirit of Christmas?

And does Christmas commercialisation this early really make you want to Christmas shop? Or... take the kids to see Santa which we....{choke} did BUT my son really wanted to tell him what he wanted for Christmas early and we weren't making any hints of what we were getting him regarding his Christmas present and I really didn't want to do this but Ian insisted.... (whew...ya believe that, right?)...?

Uh...no.

Not me...

I don't want to decorate until the day after Thanksgiving, nor listen to Christmas music, nor watch Christmas shows. The funny thing? Christmas is shoved down our throats for so long before Christmas...Santa is in the malls by the end of Halloween..the decorations are up and door buster sales are a goin' on... but as soon as the day(Christmas) ends...? That's it! It's all over. The music, some decorations, and seemingly...the spirit....it's over. We, on the other hand continue it until King's Day, aka Olde Christmas, aka Epiphany. Well, the "commercial" part over, but the spirit of Christmas and Christ?

Alive, baby!

Alive and around...forever with us....And I promise we won't shove it down your throat with our without Christmas commercialization.

I heard a woman recently state, "we need to honor our troops and veterans before we get muddled with Christmas festivities."

How true it is, how TRUE it is......