Here we are again, amidst another great Holiday season. Thanksgiving is nearly here, and then we dive headlong into Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, or whatever holiday it is you celebrate. It's a time of year that I love. And I say that without the slightest bit of irony. I should hate it, because between spending two months wages on my kids, working retail with a public that makes Christmas more hectic that it needs to be, and trying to arrange celebrations with every family member, it causes migranes and ulcers. But call me sentimental (or, at the very least, mental), but I have fond memories of Christmas. The excitement of the month, waiting to see what Santa was going to bring me. The difficult time I had sleeping on Christmas Eve, and the joy that was going out to the living room and seeing what gifts had been put under the tree for my sister and I.
But I've noticed that the Christmas season isn't what it was so long ago. Christmas commercials no longer reflect on times long ago, filled with sentimentality and nostalgia, but are just holiday-themed versions of their regular commercials. Television specials no longer make an effort to show how special a time it is, but exagerate the stress of the season. Nor do they make the effort to show the great animated specials we cherished as kids. We try too hard to recreate our happy memories for a generation that doesn't have time for such frivolities, like Clark Griswald, questioning our parents how they did it all.
Well, it's not our fault. The last few generations have learned to live without nostalgia. The internet has it there for them at the click of a mouse. While we had the memory of the great and wonderful times (usually created in our heads), they can go to YouTube, where one of their friends has probably posted it. They can watch A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS online, where as we had to wait until it was shown on TV every December. And then there's the fact that we've gotten our kids into so many activities, that they don't have time to sit down and enjoy a cup of egg nog and a cookie with us. How many of us actually have a free weekend anytime after the middle of Novemeber? Commercials that once showed retro Christmases with family and friends gathered together have given way to advertisements for $200 robot dinosaurs, and other toys that our kids will play with once, and either break or forget about once the next XBox game comes out.
So we do as we've been doing for the last few years. We run around trying to find the perfect presents that won't send our kids into hysterics, the biggest turkey and ham for our rushed dinners with family, and spend $20 on that Special Edition DVD of WHITE CHRISTMAS. But if I might, I'd like to give some advice. Whether our not you take it is completely up to you.
Take a day or two. Don't plan anything for that time period, other than sitting with your family. Turn off the cell phones and computer, and bake some cookies. Break out some Christmas candy. Turn up the strereo and listen to some Bing Crosby. Put up the tree, string the lights, pop in A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, and enjoy yourselves. And maybe - just maybe - you can create some fond memories with your kids that they'll actually want to share with their kids.
Oh, and don't buy them socks for Christmas. No one likes that.
