Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009

One holiday at a time, please

On Monday, Nov. 2, I saw my first hint of the holidays.

It was an inflatable Santa Claus in the front yard of a modest home in Madison County.

There were still mini Snickers in the Halloween pumpkin. Thanksgiving turkeys were gobbling somewhere. And there was bloated Santa, waving, a week before Veteran's Day.

Early Santa reminded me when holidays lasted a week, max, and nobody was worn down by holiday hype.

St. Nick's Day? We received a tangerine, a candy cane and a walnut. Maybe. Walnuts were banned because they left a dandy mark on your cheek or forehead when a sibling threw them across the room.

Holiday shopping? We made our tacky Christmas gifts for Mom and Dad in school art class. On Christmas Eve morning, we picked up a few pair of socks or stocking hats at Sears or Grant's on State Street in East St. Louis.

You could never go wrong buying Dad the English Leather holiday package. After shave. Deodorant. Soap on a rope. Sweet. Mom never had enough slipper socks, either.

The outside of the Mackin homestead was never decorated for the holidays. Dad was afraid of heights. No way he was getting on a ladder to strap colored lights off the gutters. It was no big deal. None of the neighbors decorated their home exteriors, either. Maybe a wreath on the door. A simple tree in every home's front window.

We had traditions, though. On Christmas Eve, we went to midnight Mass. We dressed nicely, at Mom's request. Someone, somewhere, made a funny noise. We giggled like only boys can giggle at a funny sound in a quiet church.

Christmas Day came and went with its share of meltdowns, cookies and a few smashed ornaments due to wrestling matches over broken toys.

I remind myself of the simpler holidays this time every year when people start getting a little weird in search of a perfect, Norman Rockwell-like Christmas season.

Nowadays, you have to work hard at minimizing expectations and keeping your holidays simple and free of holiday hype.

Here are a dozen things I plan to do, or not do, over the next 46 days to minimize my expectations and keep the holidays in perspective:

1. Let's call this a truce. No more talk about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. One holiday at a time. Let's honor our veterans this week. Then say "thanks" in a couple of weeks. Then ho, ho, ho.

2. No campouts at Best Buy. No shopping the day after Thanksgiving or any other day before 7 a.m. or after 11 p.m., except for my daily pit stop at Quik Trip. Holiday gift idea: A guy can always use a gift card to QT. You can't go wrong at a place where there's plenty of stuff for his car and stomach.

3. I will not wear a piece of clothing that I made or decorated myself. Generally, holidays or not, I don't like my clothes to leave a trail of glitter or cotton balls.

4. I won't wear a hat that has a ball on its end. No adult should, really.

5. Same for those red, green and cartoonish holiday socks. They may work for women and look cute on kids. But guys look downright foolish in holiday socks.

6. Sure, I'll watch holiday TV favorites like "The Christmas Story" and "It's a Wonderful Life." But only one of the 575 times they air on TBS from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day.

7. I'll listen to Christmas music occasionally. I will not force my holiday favorites onto others. I won't sing along, in public anyway. Might hum, though. But only when appropriate, and after Thanksgiving.

8. We'll acknowledge St. Nick's Day (Dec. 6) with a tangerine, walnut and a candy cane. For old time's sake. No throwing walnuts, though. They leave dandy marks.

9. I can't promise but I'll do my best to not laugh like a grade-school kid at a funny noise in church. But that depends greatly if any other guys around me are laughing.

10. I won't lie and tell everyone how good a cup of egg nog tastes during the holiday season. Egg nog is proof that eggs are best when fried, scrambled or poached but not nogged.

11. I won't say holiday-only words like "hark" or "Feliz Navidad" until after Thanksgiving.

12. Whenever I see somebody getting himself all worked up and acting holiday weird, I'll remind him when the holiday season lasted a week, max, and it was plenty of time. If he doesn't listen, I'll say "hark" and threaten to chuck a walnut at him.