When I was a child, the time between Halloween and Christmas seemed interminable. Honestly, I remember how it felt like there was a year in between October and December. Now, as a parent, it seems that I barely get a chance to blink and put my daughter's Halloween costume away before suddenly the time-space continuum collapses and, poof, it's Christmas!
And it's not just in my mind. Check out the stores and you'll see what I mean. There was a time when no respectable department store would bring out holiday decorations before Santa waved from his sleigh at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Now you can't walk through a Target, even the week before October 31st , without seeing Christmas decorations around the edges of the store. It's as if they're just waiting for the unwanted werewolf costumes and plastic jack-o-lanterns to be cleared off the shelves so they can burst forth, reproduce, and overflow twice as many shelves in a matter of dayslong before Thanksgiving.
What's a mother to do? How does one reverse the process and unravel the time that seems to have contracted upon itself? Follow these five steps and you'll feel much better:
1. Forget trying to change the situation and accept the inevitable: it's a lost cause and you're simply wasting time and energy. The retailers run the country, if not the world, and we are but putty in their hands. So...
2. Smooth the transition through the holiday season by setting up your holiday tree in October and decorating it with little orange lights, tiny skeletons and ghosts, and miniature carved pumpkins. As November waxes and wanes, you can change out the lights and transition the ornaments through small cornucopias and turkeys to your traditional Christmas ornaments. (This strategy also works well with the seasonal, decorative grapevine wreath on your front door.)
3. Instead of buying packages of the usual Halloween candy, buy candy canes, red and green M & Ms, etc. That way there won't be any "leftover" candy, and you'll be ahead of the game when December rolls around in a mere four weeks' time! Friends and neighbors will be amazed at your efficiency. If they imitate your efforts, all the better -- we'll get rid of Halloween candy altogether and increase the variety of Christmas goodies!
4. Limit your kids' costume choices to angels, reindeer, nutcrackers, snowmenyou get the idea. On November 1 st , simply drape the costumes over the autumn-leaf-stuffed, orange faux-pumpkin trash bags in your driveway and arrange them on your lawn.
5. Lastly, although each of the aforementioned holidays only occurs once each year, I believe that if you keep the spirit of Christmas alive in your heart all year long, you will be ahead of the game. So keep thinking, "Peace on Earth, good will toward everyone," and everything else will take care of itself.
Thanks for your message and your concern. My attitude and mood vary from day to day, but at least I am trying to write something lighthearted. Did you think this was humorous at all???
Thank you for your prayers. I appreciate every prayer that is sent my way.
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