Christmas Display at Sears Oakridge Mall, San JoseI remember when I was a kid … o O ( Oh lawdie, here we go … Dad’s gonna talk about the good ol’ days again. )
Hey! Hush up now. As I was saying, when I was a kid in the ‘50s, we couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving to pass, because then all thoughts turned to Christmas – a week or so later, the stores put up their yuletide displays and the street decorations went up.
The Christmas season just never arrived until all the fall celebrations had concluded.
Then, a decade or so later in the ‘60s, when I was going to college, I noticed Christmas sales being advertised on the Friday after Thanksgiving. When my first child was born, store Christmas decorations began going up while Thanksgiving was just a few days away.
When I returned to Hawaii in the ‘70s, stores began putting up their Christmas displays earlier and earlier, and in the late ‘80s, they went up right after Halloween. Today, the displays start going up before Halloween.
Which has gotten me thinking – maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all. Sure, there’s blatant commercialism involved. But if it gets us thinking and acting in the Christmas spirit … well, maybe there’s some good in that.
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