I set the artificial, tinselled, tabletop Christmas tree on the dining room table today. Half thrown beside a ceramic pumpkin, it is the first inkling of Christmas to sneak out of the attic. It's the first week of December, and once again the aura of the season finds me precariously perched behind the eight ball. If I had started running yesterday, I wouldn't have been able to catch up with the wave of festivity hitting the world outside my window.
Stores haul out the garland as soon as they mark down the 'candy kisses'.
As I march moldy pumpkins to the garbage at the curb, my neighbours begin to hang their Christmas lights. One year, when the kids were small, we put our tree up on the first of December. Our children, the oldest being four, took great pride in the fact they had decorated the tree themselves all ornaments front and centre. The tree tipped over repeatedly. We resorted to tying the top of it to the curtain rod over the livingroom window, where it dangled until all its needles fell off.