Today is the day to be in the holiday spirit, and because I am, I want to get you in the spirit, too. Lets all join hands and sing a Christmas Carol. How about, O! Christmas Tree? I’ll start it out. You sing along.
O! Christmas tree, O! Christmas tree, how ever green your branches.
That’s good. Now women only.
Very good. Now men only. Hey guys, don’t let the women show you up.
I read on Yahoo! earlier this week that some people are going all-out in decorating for the holiday season. It appears there are several companies on-line and also bricks and mortar companies that have gotten into the Christmas spirit and will sell you whatever quantity of Christmas paraphernalia suits your fancy. There are, as expected many who take this to the extreme and try to make their display the most elaborate in the neighborhood. The story sites instances where people have spent thousands of dollars to decorate their houses and displays so impressive that the traffic into the neighborhood to see the decorations becomes disruptive. In one instance, because a particular display was so massive, neighbors took it to the state’s supreme court which ruled that the display was so disruptive it had to be moderated.
Now, just those of you in the northern hemisphere.
I’m a little hazy, but wasn’t it that great supporter of Christmas gayety, Barry Goldwater, who said that extremism in the quantity of Christmas decoration is no vice? Maybe it was someone else. Like I said, I’m a little hazy and Bartlett takes me to Patrick Henry. I’m thinking Henry only said that moderation in the quantity of Christmas decoration is no virtue.
Now, just the southern hemisphere. Come on! I can’t hear you. You can do better than that. Oh, yes, that’s much better.
I think that is fine to get a little carried away. Celebrate Christmas as much or a little as you care to. I’ve gone for the subtle approach this year. You may recall I decorated my tree last week. The previous Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, while fool poets were making poems in various locations around the world, my girlfriend and I played God and assembled her tree and decorated it. Because my girlfriend is the one woman in the country who doesn’t have a gazing ball (and insists she doesn’t want one) this is the only time of year I have to bring my nose into the close proximity of a reflective convex globular ornament and amuse myself by looking at my reflection. Try it, if you haven’t done so already, and do it again in a week or so. Look at yourself in a red ornament and you will appear to be demonic as well as having a massive nose; try a silver one and you’ll look like the tin man in The Wizard of OZ with, of course, the exception of grotesque massive volume in the area of the proboscis.
Now, just those in north America. Oh, that’s good.
Look at yourself in a gold ball and you’ll swear you are C3PO, except, of course, with a nose that approaches obscenity.
Finally, just those of you outside of north America. Very good! Everybody sang very well.
In past years I have decorated the outside of my house with strings of lights across the front façade of the house and down the sides. Last year I put blue rope lights under the eaves and it gave a blue backdrop to my multi-colored lights across the front of the house, but this year I am just using the rope lights. It gives my house a blue glow and it looked really good last week when we had a little snow, but the snow is gone now and the temperature is approaching sixty degrees Fahrenheit. But the blue glow still looks good.
Just remember, though, it’s not the quantity of the decorations or even the size and value of the presents. Christmas is being with the ones you care about. Let’s all not get stressed out about it. Let’s have fun and enjoy the season.
In Jimbo’s world we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, Merry Christmas.
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