The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Editorials

November 12, 2009

It’s just too early for Christmas

From My Corner

By Dawn Dayton

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And for my taste, it’s just too darn early!

Don’t get me wrong. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I’m a sucker for a good holiday tune. But if things keep up the way there are, soon we’ll be talking Christmas 12 months a year.

The leftover Halloween candy had just gone on discount when the holiday ads began to appear on television. I thought it was earlier than usual, but my co-workers said no, it’s been that way for several years now. The ghosts and goblins have to scurry, lest they risk getting run over by a reindeer.

Christmas wrapping and shiny tinsel popping up on store shelves in mid-summer has become commonplace. Some people have always left their Christmas lights up all year long. And I do buy the occasional gift any time during the year if I know it’s something that my recipients will like — and if the price is right.

But I almost lost it when I walked into a local department store on Nov. 5 and heard Andy Williams singing that he was dreaming of a white Christmas.

It’s too early for that. On many levels, some of which have nothing to do with Christmas.

Maybe I’m dating myself, but I remember the days when no one thought about Christmas until the Thanksgiving turkey was gone. Then the anticipation would slowly build for each of the traditions my family observed as the holiday approached.

This early push for Christmas lessens the holiday, I think. It’s not special any more. Now it’s ALWAYS here and ALWAYS in your face. Retailers start to worry in April if their holiday sales will be brisk and how they will cope if they are flat.

My favorite radio station carries the Delilah show and she is already playing all Christmas songs. On Thanksgiving Day, that station itself will begin all-Christmas, all the time.

I love holiday music and have a large and varied collection — including my favorite of all time, “Are My Ears on Straight?” — and for years, I played holiday songs exclusively from Thanksgiving through Christmas.

The difference between my CDs and non-stop holiday radio is, I had a choice. If I was playing a CD and got tired of “Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer,” I could flip on the radio for a little respite. All-Christmas radio negates that option.

I believe, as many people do, that Christmas has crossed the line from a spiritual experience to just being all about the presents. How many children think that is all it is? How many remember that it all started in a forlorn stable on a cold night in Bethlehem?

Things can lose their meaning when they become too familiar, when they are always there, when we take them for granted.

Christmas — or its equivalent if you are of another faith — should never be taken for granted. Yes, its spirit can be — probably should be — with us every day of the year. But those outer trappings — the music, the tinsel, the ads — should not awaken until we’ve shaken off the turkey-induced slumber of Thanksgiving.

Then, perhaps, we would all be a bit more appreciative of day and its true meaning.

Keeping “Christ” in Christmas might be a cliché, but things become clichés because they were true in the beginning.

Maybe someday it will all come full circle and the true meaning of the holiday will shine through once again.

— E-mail: ddayton@register-herald.com

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