Well, another fall semester has come and gone. Another football season through which we trudged, ending with feeble smiles after a victory over Ole Miss. Another season entered in which summer and winter have somehow fused to create a drizzly, gray, humid seasonal mess outside.
True, the semester is not quite over. Finals still loom as confusingly and oppresively as those warm wintery rainclouds, but for all practical purposes, most students and even some professors have already closed up shop for the semester.
Now that Thanksgiving is over, I can relish the cozy nutmeg scent of the season. I can start contemplating gift ideas. I can open my eyes to the gleaming lights, shiny decorations and cars riding down the highway with Christmas trees strapped to the roofs, bobbing atop them. Never before Thanksgiving, though. The people who decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving reach far past pet peeve in my book and teeter on the edge of contempt.
As much as I hate cold weather-it’s OK; it’s a mutual dislike-I think the Christmas season might be my favorite of the year. We spend Thanksgiving in Perdido Key every year, and my mother and I traditionally wake at the crack of dawn the day after Thanksgiving to catch the sunrise over the ocean and trek to the outlet mall in Foley to brave the big sales, usually staying until dark. That’s when the Christmas spirit really begins to sink in.
Just like our annual trip to the outlet mall, there are so many little things to love-seemingly insignificant things that mark traditions, although you might not even notice how much you appreciate them. At Christmas time, so many things, even some that I dislike, find a place in my heart because of their timelessness and the fact that every year they can be counted on to be there.
You know those houses whose front yards look like every dollar store in the state vomited up the tackiest, gaudiest of decorations until every inch of dead grass is covered? I adore those houses. Some might call them eyesores. I’d never decorate my own yard like that, but I love them. There’s a house in New Orleans, the Copeland mansion, that is decorated every year with a different theme, using over a million lights. It’s almost offensive in its brightness, lighting up the block in its garish splendor, but it’s spectacular.
When I was little I’d always look forward to seeing a house in the neighborhood whose front porch showcased a little choir boy and girl, in red-and-white robes, mouths open in song. Now other neighbors every year put a spotlight in their front yards on cut-outs of Santa kneeling in front of baby Jesus. It confuses me to no end. Are they trying to say that even the secular aspects of Christmas should regard the religious ones? Doesn’t that contradict the meaning of secular itself? It’s a source of puzzlement every year.
Just like the choir children I looked forward to seeing in my younger years, the Santa and baby Jesus picture is something I look forward to seeing yearly, despite its absurdity.
The sillier the tradition, the more memorable they are. Every year I go over to the house of one of my girlfriends and watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” with her and her family, and every year I am surprised when, during the swimming pool scene, they all jump up, sing along to “Mele Kalikimaka” and do the hula. Not only is that one of my favorite holiday traditions, nothing better captures the spirit of Christmas than Randy Quaid sipping eggnog out of a mug with antlers on it, his black dickey clearly visible under his white sweater. Fantastic.
Christmas movies are one of the most wonderful things about Christmas. Some favorites include “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “Love Actually.” And of course, “A Christmas Carol,” but only in its purest, original form. The older, the better, in my opinion. The 1938 version starring Reginald Owen is a classic. Forget all of the modern adaptations like “A Diva’s Christmas Carol” starring Vanessa Williams, whose character is named “Ebony Scrooge.” I can cut some slack for “The Muppet Christmas Carol,” though.
Christmas has the uncanny ability to make simple pleasures that much more enjoyable. Shopping, for example, even though I know many would argue it’s just more of a hassle. But I’m sure everyone can agree that mini Reese’s cups taste, somehow, so much better in their red-and-green wrappers than they do at any other time of year.
Despite the fact that my musical horizons have broadened since my seventh grade year, my Christmases have come and gone to the tune of Hanson’s CD “Snowed In.” In their song “At Christmas,” the trio croons, “It’s a comfort deep inside, though you can’t stop the race of time, to know that Christmas will always be.” Cheesy as it may be, that fact is probably what I love about Christmas the most-the comfort of being with family and friends amidst all the little traditions and seemingly insignificant details that surround each Christmas. Every Christmas brings to mind warm memories of past Christmases (minus the one where I had wisdom teeth surgery), filled with crackling fires, the laughter of loved ones and the most regal and joyous of color palettes-reds, greens and golds.
So fill your yard with as many light-up reindeer and inflatable snowmen that you can. Surround yourselves with friends and family. Elbow your way through a million hostile holiday shoppers, but make sure to say “Excuse me” and “Merry Christmas.” Make a thousand new memories and remember those of Christmas’s past. And a Mele Kalikimaka to you all.