Happy Happy, Joy Joy

Is it New Year’s already? Okay, sure I know it’s not even Halloween yet, but I also know that these last three months of the year are going to go by in a mad rush. They always seem to, each holiday suddenly upon me when I’m just starting to get over the last one.

God says it’s just a fact of getting older, time speeds up as more and more we realize that it’s running out, that our little patch of it is drying up. I get that. I really do. But I don’t think that’s it for me, I don’t think that’s what I’m feeling.

What I think is that when I was a little kid the holidays just happened, they were isolated islands that just came up over the horizon. Sure they were scheduled, sure I knew they were coming, and sure I had to do things to get ready for them… but not much. I had to decide what to be for Halloween. I had to help, a little, with the cooking and cleaning for Thanksgiving, and I had to answer a few questions about what I wanted for Christmas and buy a few presents to give. But now that I’m old and have a job and have a little more disposable income each year, the holidays are a lot more work.

I have to decorate my home and my office for Halloween and then again for Christmas. I have traveling to do for Thanksgiving and Christmas and usually New Year’s, so I have to plan vacation time and coordinate it with people at work. There’s shopping, there’s wrapping, there’s Oscar contender season at the movies. There’s redoing my playlists with seasonal tunes. And as often as possible I work in a trip to Disneyland to see the Haunted Mansion done over with Jack Skellington and crew.

Sure there’s months to do it all, but it’s exhausting I tell you. And then just when I’m most worn out, when my resistance and will to fight are at their lowest, I’ll have to listen to a bunch of nut jobs whining that there’s a “war on Christmas” and lying to me about “the reason for the season.” And yet, for all of that, I wouldn’t give up these three months without getting an awful lot in return.

So let me be the first one this year to wish you Happy Holidays, and that includes Happy Halloween and Happy Thanksgiving. When I say Happy Holidays, I mean them all. Happy Holidays everyone.

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