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Summer is usually the dullest time of the year with the lack of holidays. After Easter, we go for about five or six months without those festive holidays. There are some patriotic holidays, but I normally don’t get to celebrate them. Independence Day is most likely the most festive of all of them, with the fireworks they shoot off at night. However, my job always seems to get in the way. I was only lucky enough to have the day off last year, so I saw the fireworks right here in Hilliard. I had a good time last year, as I learned that our little town does have its spark.
And then there’s also Patriot Day, September 11th. It’s hard to think of that as a holiday, as it commemorates a tragic event that happened in our rather recent history, so I don’t see it as a happy celebration. Instead, I stop to reflect on that time. Like what I was doing when I first heard the news....panicking and e-mailing all my friends and family....that feeling of relief when my dad came home safely, etc. Well, I can rant about it all day, but I’ll save that for when the day comes. September 11th is just around the corner after all. It’s about time to set my PSP wallpaper to a WTC tribute.
But October is when the holiday hype really begins, with Halloween. Well, I actually heard that Walmart will start putting out the Halloween merchandise at the first of September, so that’s when the Halloween hype really begins.
Except Halloween isn’t the same as it used to be. I used to love trick-or-treating when I was a kid. Now I’m too old for it, and I don’t even get to see today’s kids trick-or-treating. Again, the job gets in the way. One exception was a few years ago, when Walmart had an indoor trick-or-treat parade inside the store, and we associates got to give out the candy. I was all dressed up in my Lizzie Borden costume, complete with a cleaver. It surprised me that most people had no idea who Lizzie Borden was. I thought everyone knew the poem: “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks....” Anyway, I got some interesting reactions, especially when one kid saw me from a distance and yelled, “Ahh! It’s a ghost!” And of course there were many kids in cute costumes, too. I took many pictures and put them up on my Photobucket album. I swear there were at least three Spider-Men.
Fairies and Princesses
And then there’s Thanksgiving in November. It’s not as heavily commercialized as Christmas though. Thanksgiving doesn’t have as much going on alone, so I just think of it as part of the holiday season (Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa). I think of Thanksgiving and Christmas as being similar, as they both involve being with family and sitting down to a huge feast with turkey and/or ham. The only difference is the history behind the holidays, and that we give Christmas gifts.
The Christmas merchandise typically comes out right after Halloween ends. Last year, we had a few items out during October. Every year, I look for the Snowflake Friends, which I’d been collecting since I started working for Walmart back in 2001. I had a few other holiday bears, like the Keepsake Memories, but I stopped collecting them, because I was running out of space. I might get some more if I find any attractive ones this year.
Whew....all of this already has me hyped about the holidays.
