November 14th and walking by a local fast food outlet, their Christmas lights catch my eye.  On further inspection I see a decorated tree and other decorations.  Three days ago we stood nearby to honour our veterans, now it’s time for Christmas.  Next weekend is the town light up.

I love the atmosphere of the Christmas season but does it have to start so early?  Didn’t our town light up used to be the first Friday in December?  I really feel that when the Christmas season is extended, it loses its meaning.

Remember when we were kids and Christmas seemed to take forever to come, then it got down to so many “sleeps” before Santa came.  Our tree used to go up the weekend before Christmas and was a real event.  All the kids took part in hanging the precious decorations, some were old and had silly stories involved in the acquiring of them, others were home made and my eldest daughter had definite opinions that they should be hidden round the back of the tree, or discarded altogether.  She was only one year older than her nearest sibling but was very mature and opinionated.

The house was cleaned from top to bottom before the tree went up and then was just given a “quickie” each day, until it was time to take it down again.  The day after the tree went up I would take all the decorations out of storage.  Over the years I had made all sorts of cross stitch and quilted wall hangings, so the regular pictures came down to make room for the Christmas stuff.

Ornaments were packed away to make room for festive decorations.  We had the usual, made at school, Christmas “treasures”.  The lovely jam jar with macaroni glued all over, spray painted red, sparkles added and a candle inside.  Fat candles covered in sparkles, half walnuts that were made into cradles for the tiny, peanut shell baby Jesus, keeping warm under his cotton wool-ball blanket.  Again the sprinkles were liberally added.  Pine cones, again with the ever desirable glitter sprinkles.  My girls were all very much into glitter during their younger years and they seemed to spread all through the house.  I quite often had some in my hair or on my clothes, much to the amusement of my friends.

We always had a special place for our nativity set, no glitter, except the star so this could be the special part of Christmas, without the glitz.

I remember how hard it was for the remaining week to get my excited girls to think about anything else but Santa.  Letters were written and rewritten to the man in red and I assured them that he would be able to make his way down through our gas fireplace.

Christmas Eve saw the girls bathed and in bed before 8.00pm as we then had to assemble the gifts.  Over the years we assembled dolly prams, beds, strollers, complete with home made blankets and pillows.  There were also, doll houses, tricycles, bicycles, desks and a hundred and one other things.  How come when you chose a toy in a store, it doesn’t come in the assembled state?  Christmas Eve was such a busy time and we were sometimes working till almost dawn .

Christmas morning usually began around 6.00am when the first child woke up and discovered Santa had already been.  We had a rule that only stocking would be opened before the Grandparents would arrive for breakfast.  I always made sure there was something good to play with in their stockings and Dave and I would sit and watch the excitement with bleary eyes.  A cup of tea usually refreshed us enough to face the day.

How do children maintain this excitement when Christmas starts six or seven weeks before Santa comes.  I really feel that they probably get jaded by all the festivities starting too early and we are doing them a disservice.

Christmas isn’t special when it starts so early, can’t we slow it down?