The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Christmas on the South End isn’t like the movies, all tinsel and presents under a twinkling tree, eggnog and caroling. Unless you wanted a chunk of coal you didn’t bother putting up stockings by the chimney for old St. Nick to fill. Us kids just figured we were all naughty, not nice by somebody’s standards, so we got what we deserved. Pretty much nothing. Whoever decided Santa was judge and jury anyway?

Oh sure, sometimes we got a gift card from Tyee Store. Swell, thanks Mom, Thanks, Dad. Thought that counts, right? No, Christmas wasn’t our favorite holiday. Must be some folks’ favorite, though, judging by the strings of lights hanging all year long around the neighbors’ houses. Why bother taking them down when the nouveau riche have a consumer holiday 365 days of the livelong year?

Christmas down here now is a lot like Amazon. It gobbles up all the other little holiday competitors. Used to be Christmas started right after Thanksgiving. For those of you who quit using math, that’s about 30 days of shopping. A month, an entire month. I was in a store last year that started putting up the Christmas decorations right after Halloween. This year most of them did. And some, I kid you not, started before Halloween. That’s over two months, 60 days in case you don’t have the calendar app. That’s a lot of Bing Crosby muzak.

My neighbors who never take the strings of lights off their gutters all year round, maybe they celebrate their own birthday for a couple months, I don’t know. Presents every day for weeks and weeks. We got Black Friday, Internet Monday, the holiday that never really ends, whoopee! Did I say Christmas was a little like Amazon? Amazon IS Christmas, 365 days, don’t forget Leap Year. One day delivery. Drones, not reindeer, next year, count on it.

And oh yeah, before I forget, Merry Christmas one and all. From now until eternity.

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