Jay Cronley: Hoping for an overindulgent holiday season
BY JAY CRONLEY World Staff Columnist
Friday, October 19, 2012
10/19/12 at 3:27 AM
Well, what do you know? Here it is, Christmas.
True, the leaves haven't turned for the better. As true, it's around 80 degrees, there's no freeze in sight, and the front yard needs to be mowed again. True still, the fleas are out in force and it's a couple of weeks until Halloween.
The middle of October aside, the first of Christmas commercials are on television. The decorations are all out at the home and yard stores. Gift catalogs are pulling the shoulders of the mail carriers an inch nearer the ground.
Face it - the official "holiday" season has come to include everything from witches through pilgrims and angels to a baby new year wearing diapers.
Jingle is gone: The overcommercialization of the holiday season has long been considered a flaw on the moral fiber of the business community.
How dare anybody hawk Christmas lights the week before Thanksgiving. Have the nonprofits no shame in sending snowy return address stickers and 2013 calendars as unrequested gifts this early? Can't the merchants hold off on the holiday hustle at least until the first frost?
Here's why early holiday seasons got on everybody's nerves: no money.
You see all the cheery advertisements and think back of the free-spending days of rosy Christmases past, of giving and getting with little regard for the price tags, of buying stuff for mild acquaintances and performers of minor tasks, plus pets.
Then one day, his-and-her jet skis turned into his-and-her walking sticks. The Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog was ditched unopened.
Combine a lousy economy with memories of money gone south, and images of dead relatives and former friends, and Dec. 23 would have been plenty early enough to start the season.
Viva la commercialization: So here is what has happened, what has changed, at least a little bit.
Either the economy has improved slightly, or enough is enough with the penny-pinching and dollar-squeezing; enough with sending, or worse, receiving, original poems or essays as holiday gifts; enough of sending eight Christmas cards, not 800; enough practicality; enough giving friendship.
Enough of not doing enough. You can be responsible in February.
So it has come to pass this holiday season that overcommercialization is no longer the enemy.
It is hopeful thinking.
Original Print Headline: Let's hope for a lavish Christmas
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