This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The season changed in the middle of the night. We went from Thanksgiving to Christmas with the tick of a clock. It's not like it snuck up on us. The signs were long evident even before Halloween.
Lights, poinsettias, ribbons, candy and Santa had already bloomed in stores and malls, grim reminders that soon we would be hunkering down behind our credit cards against the howling wind of corporate merchandising.
And then it happened. When the clock ticked over from Thursday to Black Friday, the horribleness of Christmas leapt on us from the dark like a slobbering Yeti.
I'm not objecting to Xmas itself. I'm objecting to the rush into the season. We're barely finished with Thanksgiving. The leftovers haven't even started to smell bad yet. What's the rush?
Far worse were the freezing reminders from neighbors. The houses on both sides of mine had their Christmas lights up well before they cooked the turkey.
This isn't about rushing the season so much as it is about the imbalance of power in these homes. Wes and Geoff were up on their roofs muttering awful things under their breath because they don't have any in theirs.
I do. Tomorrow is officially December and I still don't have a single Christmas light anywhere on my property. I'll put them up in their proper time — if I feel like it.
See, I'm a believer in graduating calmly into the seasons. The official celebration of holidays should not begin until the month in which they occur. That's plenty of time to prepare for the actual day itself without overdosing on giddiness.
The one exception — actually there are two — is July and New Year's. With Independence Day occurring just four days into the month, that isn't long enough to advertise explosives and/or dig a bunker in the backyard.
New Year's Day arrives one second after midnight, which leaves little time to put up decorations and absolutely none to lay in a sufficient supply of party hats, liquor and antacids.
But every other holiday celebration timetable should be regulated by law. This keeps everyone on the same page and would no doubt result in fewer domestic disturbances.
Case in point, my wife. The day before Thanksgiving we were at the store buying pumpkin pie supplies when she mentioned the Christmas lights on the Short and Jensen homes.Seizing the opportunity of a public place to bring it up, she suggested that it might be time to at least make sure we still had our Christmas lights.
Her: "Maybe you could…"
Me: "It's still Thanksgiving, woman! Now let that be the last I hear about it!"
By the time I walked home, the boxes of lights were out in the garage waiting for me to untangle them.
I remained unmoved. You have to be tough when your goal is to change societal norms. You have to be even tougher and more unfeeling toward everyone's feelings when you want to control their behavior with new laws.
Our lights sit out in the garage untouched this morning. I am determined to stand my ground. Years from now, people will be referring to me as a social hero for standing up to the holiday bliss ninnies.
I can see it now — the Kirby Scrooge Law. My birthday will become a national holiday. School children will worship me for providing another three-day weekend.
I was enormously proud of my willingness to make a stand. Then a half dozen little girls came into my office, two of them visibly alarmed, one near tears.
"Papa, how come you don't have any Christmas lights yet? What if Santa doesn't bring us any presents to your house?"
@#$%@!
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.