As long as I’m in a griping, humbuggish mood, I might as well put in my bid for winning the prize for 
spotting the first Christmas decorations of the "season."
I shot these pictures with my Treo at the Walmart store on Bush River Road on Saturday, Oct. 11.
And yeah, I fully expect some of y’all to be able to claim to have seen some Christmas stuff before I did, and spoil what tiny bit of satisfaction I might gain from being the first in my neighborhood to publicly gripe about it.
Bah. Double Bah. Bah squared.
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Would hate to disappoint… Carolina Pottery has had them up for over a month now… but I didn’t right the date down, so no official record for me. 🙁
Yeah, the Lowes here in Aiken had their Christmas stuff up the weekend before last. I used to complain to anyone who would listen that the season of Christmas begins at sundown on the 24th and lasts until January 6, but I’ve given up. Here in the US, everyone else *stops* celebrating Christmas just when the church begins.
Why can’t we have a Papal encyclical on the overdoing of commercialism, asking all the Catholics to boycott stores that have Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving? 🙂
For Catholics, it’s even weirder. For us, the Christmas season starts on Dec. 25. The thing that starts near Thanksgiving is Advent.
This early-decorations thing is very heathen…
At Mass anyway… all of the Catholics in my family (or the ones outside I have visited) must have been corrupted by the commercialism and set the trees up at home well in advance of the 25th. Of course that’s when the advent wreaths and advent calendars came out too. (Don’t the Jesse trees show up in Mass during advent?)
Saying the Christmas decorations can’t be broken out until the 25th (at home anyway) just because that’s what the church calendar says, has always struck me similar to saying Winter doesn’t start til the solstice (it’s darn cold up north well before late December).
I was in Orangeburg today. Their downtown outside decorations were already up, as were light decorations, including creche complete with wise men (and show me where in the Bible the “wise men” came to the stable, please). When A)this country is a religious empire and B) I rule it, I will declare that NO Christmas items can go up, be displayed, or even be mentioned before the 1st Sunday in Advent. Surely, this is a top notch ‘pre-election’ promise!
Bring on the tinsel and tacky displays! The bigger, the brighter, the better. I’ll start setting up my house lights on November 1. I can’t wait!
Christmas? Let’s call them..Holiday decorations… ; )
Check out this year’s Halloween Gore and Folklore. Be sure to attend!
http://www.imakenews.com/bcb/e_article001220332.cfm?x=bdt4LmG,bbkjgG70
‘Twas 10 weeks before Christmas
And all through the House
Not a Democrat was stirring
Not one stinking louse
But their stockings were hung
In the big bailout bill
Which they loaded with pork
Until they’d had their fill.
(more to come)
When out on the mall there arose such a clatter.
W. looked out to see what was the matter
And what to his wondering eyes did appear,
But Governor Palin taking aim at Santa’s reindeer.
When asked to explain she winked, stuttered and said.
“I thought it was Putin rearing his head,
Over the air space which I’m the executive of
Joe six pack I am, and I took off my gloves”
McCain was speechless, how could he explain
How Sarah had killed one of the reindeer of fame.
Then Cindy reminded him no one will care,
If we can find a way to link this to Ayers.
Encore, encore!!!! (A hardy thank you to p.m. and Liz)
Christmas commercialism never has bothered me much. I enjoyed the Advent season, especially in Germany, but the the biblical holidays are really Easter, Pentecost, and the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (all of which were supposed to be week-long vacations to Jerusalem in ancient Israel).
Except that I never have figured out how to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in a fulfilled, Christian way. But then I never have really figured out what to do with Christmas. I don’t belong to the crowd that has to get aside and contemplate the meaning of the season. The meaning of the season is summed up right here. Of course, having two Christmas days off in Germany was kind of nice, mostly because the family has time and a chance to sit down and talk.
I personally think the Tenebrae service should be the heart of the Christian year. World mythology has a bunch of gods that come back from the dead, so Easter (relatively speaking) isn’t anything out of the ordinary miracle-wise; any god worth anything should be able to manage that. But, God on the other hand took up with a bunch of people he knew would abandon him and let himself be killed in a humiliating and painful way only for the sake of a bunch of people who couldn’t care less. That strikes me as a much bigger miracle.
OK, just saying, here’s the whole thing.
That was quite a comeback, Liz. Bravo.
‘Twas 10 weeks before Christmas
And all through the House
Not a Democrat was stirring
Not one stinking louse
But their stockings were hung
In the big bailout bill
Which they loaded with pork
Until they’d all had their fill.
Barack Obama was nestled
All snug in his bed,
With Black Liberation Theology
White noising his head.
Then somebody noticed
His history was lacking.
Still, his followers acted
Like God they were backing.
Yet, amongst the grass roots,
There arose quite a stir
About his plan to reapportion
Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
So I searched the Internet
In hopes I might find
The evidence the talking heads
All left behind.
There it shone on the monitor
The yin and the yang
And I knew it was plenty
Mr. Hussein to hang.
But, alas, no one listened.
No one seems to have heard
That all Obama has going
Is one nebulous word.
He’s no Santa Claus
And by no means a messiah
He treats his half-brother
Like any other pariah
Someone ghostwrote his memoir
And he’s not who he claims.
His chicken in every pot
Is the catchall word “change.”
Yet to the top of the polls
Like a cat he has clumb
And somehow he’s rendered
All his old friends dumb.
Though he’s new to the scene,
He’s a man with no past.
What is it he’s done?
Well, nobody asks.
Be he Kenyan, Indonesian,
American or magician,
Whatever he may be,
He’s a Chicago politician.
So, no matter his smile
Or the twinkle in his eye,
It’s a pig in a poke
We might be about to buy.
What maneuvers has he made?
Who were the players?
Can we believe what he’s said
Or is he putting on Ayers?
Before November comes
And we reach the voting booth,
Let’s hope someone preaches
The God’s honest truth.
Whoever this man is
That John Kerry discovered,
Let hope Wright’s disciple
Has all his warts uncovered.
And should it be found
That he offers us naught
But professorial prose
And what campaign money bought
Let’s send him on a speaking tour
With “God damn America” Wright,
So we can have a merry Christmas
And a prosperous New Year’s night.
My wife has her newly purchased Christmas decorations proudly displayed in our living room.
Bring it on! It’s not the calendar, its how you feel about the holiday. People who put up SERIOUS decorations like big Christmas villages and outdoor displays think nothing about starting the process in September or early October. And the good thing this year is that with the lousy economy, stores are already offering big discounts on new Christmas items. 🙂
Bring it on! It’s not the calendar, its how you feel about the holiday. People who put up SERIOUS decorations like big Christmas villages and outdoor displays think nothing about starting the process in September or early October. And the good thing this year is that with the lousy economy, stores are already offering big discounts on new Christmas items. 🙂
Bring it on! It’s not the calendar, its how you feel about the holiday. People who put up SERIOUS decorations like big Christmas villages and outdoor displays think nothing about starting the process in September or early October. And the good thing this year is that with the lousy economy, stores are already offering big discounts on new Christmas items. 🙂
The earliest I remember seeing was a blowup snowman in a front yard the week before Halloween. Everything’s starting too early, from the presidential campaigns (didn’t 2 years of it make you sick?) to holiday sales and decorations.
Don’t be fooled, folks. Retailers are trying to make as much as they can, especially because of the economy. But the longer Christmas shopping season is not likely to pay off. Folks who can afford to spend will spend about the same. Those impacted by the economic disaster will just be more depressed by the longer period of reminders of “Christmas Past.”
Mornin`
Great post……thank you for posting this, and in such great detail. I know you answered a lot of questions that many people are uncomfortable asking!