If I go by the retailers, it starts the day after Halloween, and most big box retailers set their displays a month before that.
Radio? Well, one year it's the day after Halloween. another year it's a week after. Some go 24/7, some sprinkle a little cheer here and there.
TV? Thanksgiving day, unless you’re a cable shopping channel, in which case you start in July.
And when do I stop?
Christmas starts in deafening fits, but ends with a nearly unanimous jarring silence at midnight Christmas Day.
I'm trying to figure out why this bothers me.
(Once I discover a nagging mental splinter like this, I try to analyze why and what triggers it. This is no mean feat, it takes considerable effort and sometimes unearths buried anxieties.)
I think in this case, there are a few reasons:
1. Christmas isn't something you turn on and off, as Scrooge discovered; Christmas is something you keep all year.
2. Too much of anything is a bad thing, and that goes for peppermint and tinsel as much as anything else.
3. When something becomes an excuse to make money, it is then no more than that. I may as well celebrate freeway tolls.
4. Everyone pretends Christmas is something that it isn’t.
5. I don’t want it to end.
6. I get the feeling everyone was having a party but really didn’t want to be there.
[2013-12-31]
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Many year ago I had this constant recurring thought: “I wish someone would give me $20.” I had no idea where this was coming from. It wasn’t a voice, just a constant intrusion into unrelated activities. I don’t remember now what precisely was triggering it, but when I took a moment to analyze it, I discovered an event I was repressing. As soon as I uncovered it, the intrusions stopped.
I’m not a psychoanalyst, but I’ve repeated this process many times. Perhaps that is what keeps me sane, or maybe I am only staving off insanity.
[2014-01-04]
c0
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