It’s here again. The season between Halloween and Christmas. Which over the years has become a rather contentious time. Our nation, thanks to social media giving everyone a platform to air their complaints, has become rather quarrelsome.
Each year, immediately after All Hallows Eve, and often before, the stores begin to display Christmas decorations and gift items. The response to this ranges between rage and shopping mania.
The former group seems to resent the rush to Christmas, thinking we will neglect the traditional Thanksgiving holiday. They feel the world should not begin to experience Christmas until Thanksgiving Day is over.
The latter group begins their usual this-time-of-year buying frenzy. The merchants respond by introducing “Black Friday” earlier and earlier in the season. Black Friday once referred to the day after Thanksgiving when Christmas sales began. This year, this event will begin around the middle of the month.
And on social media, we see the eager-for-the-holidays group becoming braver, decorating trees and houses and posting pictures for the world to see. “I’m ready for Christmas and I don’t care who knows it.”
This made me think of a post on this site a few years ago entitled The Taming of the Scrooge.
One morning, after a really bad night, Ebenezer Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year through.”
That means that while hunting Easter eggs, popping firecrackers, trick or treating, or even during Thanksgiving dinner, he would experience the joy, love, and wonder that is Christmas.
He would look at the cross at sunrise on Easter morning and think, “Yes, this is what it’s all about.” He would celebrate the birth of our country knowing that God alone gives us real freedom. He would enjoy the happiness and excitement of the children on Halloween, remembering the saints who have gone before us.
I doubt he would be so determined to observe Thanksgiving Day before having anything to do with Christmas that he would stomp into the holiday season with a chip on his shoulder.
He might love it that the merchants in town began early in the season to remind us to prepare for the coming of the Christ Child.
Keeping Christmas all year long. That is really a good idea.
I like your thoughts on keeping Christmas all year long; however, I must confess to being one of those folks who thinks we need to enjoy Thanksgiving before decorating the house for Christmas. I want to enjoy the pumpkins, gourds, and autumn color a little bit longer.
However, I’d love to be finished with my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. But that is never going to happen.
Wonderful post! I have Christmas in the living room and fall in the kitchen. Once Thanksgiving holiday passes it’ll be Christmas in every room. 🙂
Absolutely keep Christmas alive all year!! Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, King of my heart!! Christ within me, Christ below me, Christ above me, never to part!!
Love you Mom