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Archiver > NORWAY > 1998-12 > 0912789644


From: "D. Benell" <>
Subject: Re: Christmas Decorations
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 09:40:44 -0700


I have to sympathise with you Ann!

It seems as though Christmas in my town in California keeps getting earlier
every year. This year Christmas started "commerically" right after
Halloween, and "residentially" the day after Thanksgiving. Like many
others I love the Christmas season and enjoy driving past the decorated
homes in my neighborhood, but why does it have to happen so soon?! My
next-door-neighbor likes to celebrate one holiday after another
continuously! Christmas starts right after Thanksgiving, thru December and
most of January. About the middle of January, they start celebrating
Valentines day; on February 15th, the St. Patrick's Day decorations go up,
followed immediately by Easter, 4th of July, etc.

The holidays USED to be special, and something to look forward to, but with
all this recent overload, I am beginning to enjoy them less and less.

As for my own tastes... I get my Christmas tree no sooner than the week
before Christmas. I put little decorations on the exterior of my house -
just a small touch here and there. I guess I prefer to internalize
Christmas, by creating an atmosphere inside my home for my guests and
family to enjoy rather than to string millions of tiny white lights all
around my house and front yard, plant a big sign in my yard screaming
"SANTA STOP HERE!", and hang the big poinsettia banner from my flagpole.
Does this make me a "traditionalist", or an "anarchist"? :)

D. Benell

>
>> Christmas decorations.
>>
>
>It's an issue I'm grinding my teeth about at the moment. [snipped] . . .
>All the town lights and
>decorations were up by Thanksgiving (November 26). And they are now
>charging money to drive through the light display in the town park.
>
>I think this is way too early to start celebrating Christmas. It's bad enough
>having to listen to sentimental Christmas songs in stores for over a month. I
>love Christmas music, but not until a week or maybe two before Christmas.
>
>With all this premature decoration sometimes I feel like I'm living in one
>big
>Wal-Mart (a ubiquitous store with the reputation among scrooges like me of
>having destroyed hundreds of small town businesses across the country).
>
>As for my house, I have two big (artificial - this IS Texas) evergreen
>wreaths
>which are lit with white lights in the front windows, and single
>(electric) candles
>in all the windows of my house. The latter I remember from a farmhouse near
>where I grew up in Michigan in the 1960s. It always made me think of a warm
>cozy house inside, so I reproduced it here.
>
>Ann
>Ann Helgeson
>Elgin, Texas
>http://www.totalaccess.net/~helgeson
>
>
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