November 11, 2004

Okay, I'll admit that I've started my Christmas shopping because it's always nice to get a jump start on that in order to avoid the overcrowded mall the weekend before Christmas. But hello, isn't it a little early for Christmas decorations to be going up?

I'm not even talking about how stores are putting up their decorations because of course they're just trying to make money by selling early. It's kind of annoying but I can live with it. No, I mean the sight I saw this morning as I was pulling out of my development.

One of my neighbors has wrapped their staircase rail in garland and topped it with bows. And there are candy canes lining their walkway.

Um, it's only November 11. Don't most people wait until, say, after THANKSGIVING to put up the Christmas decor? Isn't the second week of November pushing it a little for breaking out the red and white? I'm just saying.

Of course, I shouldn't talk. Jeb and I began having problems shortly after we married and there was quite an escalation in problems around the holidays... so the Christmas decorations I'd put in the bay window of the dining room never got taken down. Until September. At which point I said to Jeb, "Should I even take them down, I mean, they've been up for almost a year and if I put them away now I'll just have to take them out again in a month or two." But I took them down anyway so we could get some normalcy established in our house once again. So, while I am guilty of the year-round Christmas decoration faux pas, it was in my house where you couldn't see it from the outside.

It's not like I put Christmas decorations in my front yard in early November.

that was then - this is now