Winter holidays are on their minds in the heat of August
I have a friend who never fails to exasperate me, because she’s
so incredibly well-organized and put together all the time.
She asked me recently, on a bright hot August day, in all
seriousness:
”
Have you done your Christmas shopping yet?
”
Winter holidays are on their minds in the heat of August
I have a friend who never fails to exasperate me, because she’s so incredibly well-organized and put together all the time.
She asked me recently, on a bright hot August day, in all seriousness:
“Have you done your Christmas shopping yet?”
I looked at her in disbelief. She didn’t take the hint and continued, “I’ve gotten all mine done all ready. Everyone’s checked off. Now I can really enjoy the holidays.”
Holidays? Is this woman on crack?
“I kind of like to do my Christmas shopping in December,” I finally said, when I had recovered a bit.
She looked at me with obvious pity, and a little disdain for my slothful nature.
“I just can’t wait till the last minute,” she explained, examining her perfect nails. “I’d just rather get it done now while I have time.”
Isn’t it bad enough that we have to do Christmas shopping at all, let alone stretch it out for six months beforehand?
I don’t know about you, but thinking about the winter holidays at this time of year only makes me shudder.
It’s not that I mind Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or what have you. It’s just that it seems weird to think about it while we’re still running the air conditioning and complaining about the heat.
Another friend of mine, Penny, is already planning what displays she’ll have in her front yard and on the house for the holiday season.
“All the neighbors keep adding stuff, and I have to add stuff, too,” she told me. “I just buy it and tell my husband later.”
So she’s making a list, and checking it twice, to make sure she’s got all the cords and batteries and clips and whatnot that’s required to make her lighting display its most spectacular. And I can’t help thinking, in the good old summertime, that this is going a bit overboard.
I have yet another friend who’s already panicking about Christmas. Mike panics easily anyway, but he’s already fretting about the amount of money he has to spend to buy Christmas presents for his family.
“The problem is,” he explained to me one day, “is that it’s not just for my mother and father and sister. It’s for cousins and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces. And I can’t talk anyone into not giving presents.”
So Mike gets the double whammy – not only does he have to buy a lot of presents that he’d rather not have to, but he also receives an assortment of gifts that he’d rather not have.
His comment: “Oh, gee, another ugly shirt. It’s just what I didn’t want.”
Despite his efforts to talk the rest of the family into giving nothing, or perhaps donations to one’s favorite charity, his effort has been in vain so far.
As for me, I am so not in the winter holiday mood. I’m still soaking up the sun, lying about like a lizard on a lawn chair, enjoying the fact that school has not yet started and the nectarines are wonderful.
I am perfectly content to let August be August and December be December. We’ll get there soon enough.
