Christmas needs to stop throwing up on my fall.

Christmas needs to stop throwing up on my fall.  Seriously.  Thanksgiving, the gloriously mystified American holiday, is still a week away.  Yet, everywhere I look white lights, colored lights, red holiday coffee cups, and signs of Christmas trees and the impending wraps for presents underneath abound.  The reds and greens post a stark contrast to the brilliant golds, reds, and oranges of fall leaves.  Fall needs no decorating, as the leaves and changing plant life do the job splendidly.  Instead, in the uber fast world of consumption and bringing in the highest dollar amount fall has taken a backseat to the high consumption and fast-paced Christmas Season.  I sigh. 

I sigh some more. 

I’ve always had a fond affection for fall.  The changing leaves, the smell of dying leaves in the air, the smell of fires for the first time of the coming months.  The browns and tans.  Sweaters, sweater dresses, and boots strike me as some of the most beautiful outfits for the fast dying season.  As a child I remember the months of October and November filled with Peanuts specials about “The Great Pumpkin” who never appeared and of Pilgrims celebrating the first Thanksgiving.  The historian in me now knows that the first Thanksgiving wasn’t celebrated until several years later, and it was not a regular event for the British colonist.  Instead, the holiday we now barely remember at the end of November occurred earlier.  It is a harvest festival after all.  The harvest, at the end of the growing season was a few months before . . . but, Americans celebrating Thanksgiving at the end of November isn’t a travesty.  In many ways it is a celebration of the festival of fall and late summer.  The natural vegetation serves as a delectable backdrop for what has become a day for friends and family. 

Turkeys and stuffing, cranberry sauce (which to make it really American it must come from a can and have the shape), pumpkin pies, and variations of cornbread dot the edible landscape.  The majority of what we eat for Thanksgiving is actually a historical fallacy, but until relatively recently it more-or-less represented the season itself.  The fall fruits of squashes and pumpkins, the turkeys as they are hunted in fall, and the colors of food on the Thanksgiving table reflected the markers of golds, reds, and oranges on the trees.  Instead, though, within the past decade (or last five years, more precisely) Thanksgiving looks displaced on its day.  It is being squashed with the red bows, songs of sleigh bells, and race to consumption of all things holiday (which is the new code word for Christmas). 

Perhaps I am part of the last great generation, in the fact that we woke up on Black Friday and the world transformed for us.  Christmas trees began to rise, the neighbors (often hung over and laden from the festival the night before) teetered on rooftops to hang lights.  Sporadic Christmas songs began to jingle through our radios.  Mint and eggnog beverages began to be sold.  Shops and malls did not bedazzle themselves with versions of the North Pole before Black Friday.  Usually, it wasn’t until near December 15^th that decorations were finally complete.  My Mother gets saddened with the Christmas season.  Instead, I get disgusted with its hyperactivity.  Now, it looks like Santa threw up on the world by November 5th . . . now, my favorite season of autumn is being hijacked and attacked. 

For folks like me, the real signifier of Christmas came with the Hanging of the Greens at church.  In high school, the Chi Rho kids did it.  Of course, we all slept over in the church the night before, never really beginning practice until near midnight.  The last year I did it I remember the preacher and youth leader near insanity from exhaustion at four in the morning as we climbed on pews, broke out singing “Jingle Bells,” and a secondary chorus of dudes belched the harmony (literally, belching my dears).  The next morning, the church doors would open and bedraggled teenagers, devoid of sleep, plied on makeup and did each other’s hair in the fellowship hall.  No one dared come in there, as they probably feared hormonal teens attacking them with curling irons and eyelash curlers.  At some point we all took our stations in the sanctuary, after being fed with donuts, Cokes, and coffee.  I’m sure there was a premise made of milk and orange juice, but . . . Sitting in those pews, we were on display as much as the greens were about to be. 

I remember sitting up front, behind the associate pastor’s podium, and a kid named Jacob had a light up tie.  Someone else had on Christmas socks.  Whitney, or maybe it was a girl named Becca, had tied red ribbons in our hair.  We played with Jacob’s tie, those Christmas socks a few people over had bells, and we poked each other in our sleepy haze to stay awake and contain on our joy.  My folks told me all they could see were three large red bows bouncing with curls flying.  The small spectacle we made, riddled with giggles and glares from the preacher (who was really just as sleepy as us and more laughing with us than anything else), signified our Christmas season.  It was very different from the holiday season that now abounds. 

Now, stores infiltrate Christmas to us in September.  We are expected to begin drinking mint and eggnog beverages as soon as the weather drops below 85 degrees (F), and  . . . Thanksgiving is merely a day to fuel yourself for the literal bone-crushing shopping spree known as Black Friday.  Fall has been pushed, and suppressed, under the lights and weight of the consumption dollar that only Santa Clause can bring.  In all reality, the American Santa was created as an advertising campaign for Coca Cola.  Christmas, in more ways than one, has been hijacked by corporations. 

I’m nostalgic for celebrating one holiday at a time.  I’m even more nostalgic for Thanksgivings that weren’t a mere waiting day for the Christmas consumption season.  Even more sadly, I’m nostalgic for Thanksgivings when the stores were still closed.  As I've said, Christmas needs to stop throwing up on my fall.