Hard to believe, but another Christmas season is upon us. As the year winds down and I have a chance to collect my thoughts, I cannot help but notice a simple, yet inescapable observation. I can't help but think that Christmas has become, well, cheesy.
Don't get me wrong. I love the holiday season; it truly is the second-most wonderful time of the year - second only to spring, when that final snow melts and the earth bursts forth with green regrowth. But even within the short period of time I have been an adult paying attention to such things, I can't help but notice a sense of tackiness pervading this most sacred of holidays.
This year established precedence. Christmas decorating and marketing began, for the first time in my observation, before Thanksgiving. It used to wait for the first snow in December. Then, it used to wait until Dec. 1. The past several years, Christmas had been kept at bay until Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Christmas was unleashed like a pack of starving wolves before Thanksgiving, for the first time in my memory. Expect it to never go back.
With the early appearance of blow-up Santa lawn ornaments and associated holiday bling came, as I mentioned at the onset, a definite level of cheesiness. I heard Christmas music on the radio, before the leaves had even fallen from the trees. I saw bright red and green holiday decorations right next to the earth tones of autumn. Funny, how overcommercialization and overexposure sucks the life, meaning and magic out of Christmas.
It's not all bad. At the risk of sounding like a grinch, I'd like to share with you a special tradition that my wife and I look forward to each Christmas. Early in December we take a Saturday, and visit William's Tree Farm just outside Rockton, Ill. We arrive early, before the crowds. We hitch a ride on a horsedrawn wagon, which takes us out to the trees. I am sure to wear the same coat that I wear around my own horses, so as to actually get noticed by the team. Inevitably, as I scratch the great animals on their neck, the driver calls out, "Hey - they like you." Nah, they just smell someone else on my jacket.
We take our time, wandering amongst the trees. At this early hour, the air is still and there are very few other souls. The scent of pine makes it truly smell like Christmas. Eventually we find our tree, which always looks just perfect - not at all blemished, like the fifty or so that we just passed up. I cut it down, and we drag it to the roadway. This year, an older couple joined us as we waited for a lift back to the lodge. The man smiled, "This is our tradition. We've been coming here every December for the past 25 years."
Ashley and I laugh, making the mandatory "we've got a ways to go" joke. In fact, one of the best parts about being married is starting, and maintaining, holiday traditions of our own. If we're still doing this more than two decades from now, what a wonderful life it will be.
As always, we grab a bag of hot, sugar-coated mixed nuts and pick out a new Christmas ornament. Just before noon, the farm is getting busy. The peace and tranquility is being replaced by scores of families, each living a holiday tradition of its own. Time for us to press on. We pay for the tree and depart for phase two of the day's itinerary.
A little-known fact is that I enjoy a good meal of sushi now and again. After picking out our tree, Ashley and I head to our favorite sushi joint for lunch. We are not rushed; we have time to sit and enjoy the day, one delicious roll at a time. Soon enough we'll hit the road and spend the evening at home, sipping wine and putting up Christmas decorations.
To us, the start of the Christmas season takes place in early December, when we pick out and cut our own tree, followed by a hearty meal of Japanese cuisine. To us, Christmas means a time to relax, unwind after a busy year, and take time to appreciate friends and family. I guess that's why I find it hard to suffer the cheesiness that Christmas seems to have become.
If everything that is tacky, gaudy, cheesy, overcommercialized and repulsive about Christmas can be condensed into one simple entity, it would have to be the song, "Last Christmas," originally produced by British pop duo Wham. Appropriately, since being released in 1984, the song has been given a makeover by the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Rosie O'Donnell, The Cheetah Girls, and now - wait for it - Taylor Swift.
I don't ever recall hearing this song before 2009. Now, it is even played as background Christmas music at Japanese restaurants. I wouldn't mind, except it is singularly the most horrible song to ever be produced. The refrain, "I'll give it to someone special," repeated, is just begging to be mocked. How appropriate for Taylor Swift to take it up.
If you have not heard it, trust me - it's even worse than a Kenny Rogers' Christmas Special. As if that were possible.
- Dan Wegmueller of Monroe writes a column for the Times each Monday. He can be reached at dwegs@tds.net. Wegmueller's column will return Jan. 9, 2012.
Don't get me wrong. I love the holiday season; it truly is the second-most wonderful time of the year - second only to spring, when that final snow melts and the earth bursts forth with green regrowth. But even within the short period of time I have been an adult paying attention to such things, I can't help but notice a sense of tackiness pervading this most sacred of holidays.
This year established precedence. Christmas decorating and marketing began, for the first time in my observation, before Thanksgiving. It used to wait for the first snow in December. Then, it used to wait until Dec. 1. The past several years, Christmas had been kept at bay until Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Christmas was unleashed like a pack of starving wolves before Thanksgiving, for the first time in my memory. Expect it to never go back.
With the early appearance of blow-up Santa lawn ornaments and associated holiday bling came, as I mentioned at the onset, a definite level of cheesiness. I heard Christmas music on the radio, before the leaves had even fallen from the trees. I saw bright red and green holiday decorations right next to the earth tones of autumn. Funny, how overcommercialization and overexposure sucks the life, meaning and magic out of Christmas.
It's not all bad. At the risk of sounding like a grinch, I'd like to share with you a special tradition that my wife and I look forward to each Christmas. Early in December we take a Saturday, and visit William's Tree Farm just outside Rockton, Ill. We arrive early, before the crowds. We hitch a ride on a horsedrawn wagon, which takes us out to the trees. I am sure to wear the same coat that I wear around my own horses, so as to actually get noticed by the team. Inevitably, as I scratch the great animals on their neck, the driver calls out, "Hey - they like you." Nah, they just smell someone else on my jacket.
We take our time, wandering amongst the trees. At this early hour, the air is still and there are very few other souls. The scent of pine makes it truly smell like Christmas. Eventually we find our tree, which always looks just perfect - not at all blemished, like the fifty or so that we just passed up. I cut it down, and we drag it to the roadway. This year, an older couple joined us as we waited for a lift back to the lodge. The man smiled, "This is our tradition. We've been coming here every December for the past 25 years."
Ashley and I laugh, making the mandatory "we've got a ways to go" joke. In fact, one of the best parts about being married is starting, and maintaining, holiday traditions of our own. If we're still doing this more than two decades from now, what a wonderful life it will be.
As always, we grab a bag of hot, sugar-coated mixed nuts and pick out a new Christmas ornament. Just before noon, the farm is getting busy. The peace and tranquility is being replaced by scores of families, each living a holiday tradition of its own. Time for us to press on. We pay for the tree and depart for phase two of the day's itinerary.
A little-known fact is that I enjoy a good meal of sushi now and again. After picking out our tree, Ashley and I head to our favorite sushi joint for lunch. We are not rushed; we have time to sit and enjoy the day, one delicious roll at a time. Soon enough we'll hit the road and spend the evening at home, sipping wine and putting up Christmas decorations.
To us, the start of the Christmas season takes place in early December, when we pick out and cut our own tree, followed by a hearty meal of Japanese cuisine. To us, Christmas means a time to relax, unwind after a busy year, and take time to appreciate friends and family. I guess that's why I find it hard to suffer the cheesiness that Christmas seems to have become.
If everything that is tacky, gaudy, cheesy, overcommercialized and repulsive about Christmas can be condensed into one simple entity, it would have to be the song, "Last Christmas," originally produced by British pop duo Wham. Appropriately, since being released in 1984, the song has been given a makeover by the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Rosie O'Donnell, The Cheetah Girls, and now - wait for it - Taylor Swift.
I don't ever recall hearing this song before 2009. Now, it is even played as background Christmas music at Japanese restaurants. I wouldn't mind, except it is singularly the most horrible song to ever be produced. The refrain, "I'll give it to someone special," repeated, is just begging to be mocked. How appropriate for Taylor Swift to take it up.
If you have not heard it, trust me - it's even worse than a Kenny Rogers' Christmas Special. As if that were possible.
- Dan Wegmueller of Monroe writes a column for the Times each Monday. He can be reached at dwegs@tds.net. Wegmueller's column will return Jan. 9, 2012.
