Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Holidays? ACK! (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

It is now, officially, holiday season. I don't wait for anyone to tell me this. No--I take my cue from the supermarket where I shop early every Saturday morning. It has been Halloween there for at least two weeks.

Here comes the holiday juggernaut, not the least slowed by the global economic meltdown (at least, not at my supermarket).

It is Halloween to the extreme: costumes, candy, crazy stuff to put in your front yard...and the folks in Washington think there is a huge problem? Hello?!? We have to get on with the season of ghouls and ghosts, of little kids going door-to-door to collect candy, of young adults acting crazy (oh...that's not a Halloween exclusive), of old people (I am in training to become an old person, and I have earned my yellow belt) who refuse to acknowledge their solemn obligation to buy candy and give it away.
I love this image, as it connotes both the sugar requirement--and what more true-to-the-holiday treat could there be than candy corn--and the scary, web-entangled bald guy with a goofy grin on his face. First John McCain pumpkin of the season!

I have to admit that the holiday season has never been the part of the year I favored. I don't particularly like crowds, and the crowds one often ends up in during this season are either family or work-related. No thanks, and no thanks.

I love my family, each and every one of them, but when we all get together it seems that it is an explosion awaiting the slightest tremor. Work-related? Do I really need to expound on that topic?

Yet, there is a certain magic in the air once we start to see frost on the rooftops. I resist it as long as I can, but I always give in before it is over.

So, today's Sacred Life, Sunday is all about buying into the season we have entered...like it or not.

10 comments:

Sylvain said...

Funny you should mention. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving. I've already been reminded why I hate holidays. Please pass the turkey, with a giant helping of guilt on the side.

Rick Hamrick said...

Syl--I had no idea it was Thanksgiving in Canada! Sometimes the right posts come at the right time without being consciously planned.

thailandchani said...

I don't buy into the holidays.. but it's my favorite season. :) I love the cool days, the frost, the clouds, the rain... all of it!


~*

Rick Hamrick said...

I agree with you, thailandchani, that this time of year is easy to love! In Denver, we often get as warm as 70, but the nights are brisk and the snow is almost certain to visit before St Nick does.

We just had our first hard freeze last night, so we had weeks to enjoy our garden that we usually don't get. It was a great surprise to return in late September from our long vacation trip to find our garden still in peak shape. I'm betting it won't be when I get home tonight!

Angela said...

This is my favorite season of the year, but not because of the holidays. I just love the crispness in the air, the goldening of the trees and the shorter days.

Rick Hamrick said...

Angela--my one little detail I'm not crazy about is scraping the windsheild in the mornings.

I'm sure with you on the other features of this season!

Julie said...

I love fall, but somewhere right around Christmas I start to tire of all of the man-made fake crap. Not a big fan of the turkey and the stress of travel either. Gah. I'm scrooge!

Rick Hamrick said...

Jules--I'm with you. The only good news about Dec 26th is that we are already a few days into lengthening the amount of sunlight each day. I'm all for the end of the short days, and returning to the long ones.

I know there are people who totally eat up the holiday consumer-fest nonsense, including all the plastic Santas and Rudolphs with ANIMATION AND GLOWING NOSE!! but it ain't me.

Not sure if I like you more as Barney or as Road Runner. Tweety, maybe?? [grin]

Asheville Public Art said...

You know what I like the most about Halloween? Kids adjusting their masks. Little kids, little fingers; fingertips making tiny, inscrutable changes to the position of the mask so that they really DO look like Spongebob. Now. This delicate movement always seems so spectacularly so full-of-hope to me. Consumed by the enterprise, strengthened, beyond themselves, they go into the night.

Rick Hamrick said...

John--what a great observation! Having four daughters, it reminds me of the times as each of them reached the tender age when they first became concerned with their appearance. I loved to watch them do exactly what you describe seeing as little kids get their costumes adjusted to fit their own image of the character. My daughters would often stop at the mirror in the front hall as they were about to walk out of the house, and they would check their hair and the way their clothes were hanging. They were, in a way, checking their costumes, their masks of beauty which protected them from the world. And, hid the uncertainties they might have been feeling at the time.