Yes Virginia, retailors are stealing Christmas

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus, and he will be at your local shopping mall earlier and earlier every year so that retailors can make money sooner and Christmas is just another day that doesn’t mean anything more than the bottom line. When I was a little girl there were no glimpses of Christmas until you got the Sears Big Book catalog with all the latest toys which usually arrived in November. The season kicked off once you saw Santa make his way down the street on TV for the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving. The next day the stores were all decorated and the decorations in the town square were lit up, with the faded Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer lighting the way for all the holiday magic. There was no Black Friday. That Friday was the first day of holiday baking, decorating and writing our lists to Santa while we had that Sears Big Book and its already worn pages marked to show him what we wanted. The trip to Santa was always nerve racking trying to remember everything you wanted to ask him without sounding too greedy. Greedy kids were on the naughty list and just the thought of coal made you shiver in your Moon boots. We went to church back then, most everyone did. There was the traditional live nativity or anointing of the crèche. Even if you weren’t an overly religious person, the ceremony meant something. It was a reminder of what Christmas was supposed to be about. Family and tradition was more important than getting the latest gadget at ad match prices. Kids bought their dads ties they would never wear, you bought mothers perfume that made her smell like dead flowers and you made someone in your family an ashtray even though they didn’t smoke. At some family holiday gathering you would eat aunt so and so’s Jello surprise salad and lied about how wonderful it was until you realized the surprise was it was left over from Thanksgiving. These are the things we remember, not the gifts we got but the moments years later we joke about. I wish my kids could know all the magic I did during those years. Each holiday was allowed to stand alone with all its wonder. I try to created that at home but the outside world does its best to squash my idealistic bubble. I don’t want my kids to think of this time of the years like it is just like any other time of the year. It should be special. It shouldn’t be splashed all over the television and shopping malls in October so it loses its meaning. I do what I can to make it special and I think they understand what it should be about which gives me hope for Christmas to come. Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus you just may need to look a little harder to find him under all the retail propaganda. But he is there and thank goodness he is there to bring a little magic back to this time of the year.