That Christmas Creep Will Get You Every Time

by Kevin Burton

   Our rule about Christmas music is none before Dec. 1.  For Christmas decorations, anything goes as long as it’s after Thanksgiving.

   We should perhaps clean up that Christmas rulebook inconsistency.

   Also, most years we buy a new Christmas ornament for the tree. We have enough ornaments for at least two trees, maybe three. This year we got one at a church fundraiser well before Thanksgiving. We cast our eyes upon other ornaments at the Hallmark store, but resisted.

   My wife and I forgave ourselves all of that. I was taken aback though when my ride service took me to Wichita for my usual Thursday visit with my mother, and the driver played a radio station that had already switched to all Christmas music. I was a captive audience. Nothing I could do about it.

   This was on Nov. 14 and temperatures were in the high 60s. Jack Frost was nowhere to be found.

   I had planned to keep track of all the Christmas-creep offenders among the retail stores I visited and report it on Page 7, but I forgot. No matter. I promise you every store I have been in since late October had some kind of Christmas display.

   Less is more I say. If half the year is Christmas that makes the whole thing less special.

   The only good thing about the early Christmas music is that some years I forget to play any until just a few days before the 25^th, then I feel cheated. Probably won’t happen this year.

   I don’t always get things right at Christmas. Case in point: Last December I bought one of those big cans of popcorn, divided into sections with three types of popcorn. You know what I mean, you see them everywhere.

   But I didn’t tear into that festive Christmas popcorn the way I had in previous years.  Jeannette hardly touched it, far as I can tell.  So there is sat on our living room table, mostly undisturbed. Sat there for months.

   After a while it was almost as if we couldn’t see it sitting there.

   Occasionally I would eat a little just to see if it had gone bad. “Well, it’s not too stale,” I would say.

   But finally Thursday, as we scurried about the place, tidying up so Jeannette could host a bunco party for a three dozen of her female friends, l finally I asked for, and received, permission to throw away the 11-month-old salty treat.

   The kettle corn had congealed to the point that it fell into the trash in one piece.  That made for a quick convenient cleanup!

   And, I carefully washed out and saved the decorative can, because I am certain we will use it, just as I was sure we would eat the popcorn. “Good thinking” I hear you say, “so many uses for a can like that!”

   And all this doesn’t begin to tell the story of Christmas creep and its associated nonsensities.

   Here’s one though, for the home team. Here’s one to bring some sanity back to Christmas. 

   There’s a questions people ask each other in December, “Are you ready for Christmas?” It’s more fashionable not to be ready, so in response you emphasize whatever details have not been ironed out.

   Blah, blah, ho-ho-ho.

   So instead of asking people are you ready for Christmas, let’s say we ask them, are you ready for Jesus?

   People are so used to being asked about Christmas, you may have to repeat yourself.

   “No, I said are you ready for Jesus?”

   “Well I hope so, ha ha…” voices trailing off.

   I first had this idea sometime after Easter this year. It’s a much better question, don’t you think?

   Dec. 25 comes and goes so fast it makes your head spin. It’s the most fleeting of days, except that the bills linger into the new year.

   But Jesus?  When He comes back, as he said He would, this will be no passing holiday.  This will be the “payday someday” more ominous than your credit card bills, if in fact you’re not ready.

   Are you ready for Jesus?

   Trying to sneak Christ out of Christmas by writing “Xmas,”  that won’t hold up when Jesus returns.

   Working book title: “The Day the Sleigh Bells Stopped.”

   Ah, but how gauche of me to bring up a thing like that at this most wonderful time of the year. We’re all friends here, right?