And Now...Christmas

Santa has come to Foyleside shopping center. He brought with him a two-story, white plywood castle, a "Christmas Grotto," and at least three very short, men (women?) dressed in reindeer costumes. And a lot of twinkly icicle lights and Christmas cheer.

Derry is holiday-crazy city. It has at least, at least, five Halloween costume stores just on the main road, and there was an entire, full-size haunted house inside of the mall. It was Halloween in the beginning of September, and now that Halloween is over, it is instantly Christmas.

At first, this worried me a little bit. What was going to happen to all the Halloween stores? Where there owners going to starve? Or maybe they were going to migrate south for the winter? But then I realized that all the costume shops had converted (overnight!) to “Christmas Shops.” Phew.

Just a little piece of Christmas magic, I guess.

Every time that I walk down Strand Road, I notice that they have put up more decorations. It started small; just some subtle lights here and there, but now that we have passed the Halloween hurdle, there is no restraint. In the middle of the day, grown men are standing on ladders in the street, wrapping tinsel around lamp posts. Don't they have jobs that they need to be doing? How do they have all of this free time?

I like it.

I have never been one of those people who could listen to Christmas music at the beginning of November; it seems so wrong. What about Thanksgiving (just because you don't get any presents, and it celebrates that fact that Americans basically wiped out the Native American population, is that any reason to shortchange it? Come on, what's better than the Horn of Plenty and a rousing chorus of "We Gather Together?")? Doesn't Thanksgiving get it time to shine? It has always been a hurdle that prevents me from having early-November Christmas joy.

But they don't have Thanksgiving here. So that's not a problem anymore. I can celebrate Christmas from November 1st onward, and no other holiday is going to get its feelings hurt! I can download "All I Want For Christmas Is You," and listen to it continuously on my iPod for a whole day! And I can watch "Love Actually!" Twice!

I am liberated!

And soon, I shall buy a Christmas cake. What a great day that will be.