Christmas! October! NO!

After a weeklong battle with what I can now assume was the flu and not the Consumption, dengue fever, ebola, marburg, polio, or some guinea pig to human black plague, I finally have returned. 

I was, as Betty Crocker put it, sick a bed.

It's that time of year again. It's time to get distracted from buying Halloween and fall stuff and make a beeline towards the Christmas stuff that has been on sale since September. Does your child need a costume or do you need that Minnie Mouse dressed as Mrs. Claus? Decisions to be made and you are either going to turn left or turn right when you go into Wal Mart. Yes, by going into the Christmas aisle you run less of a chance of running into a kid standing shamelessly in his underwear and bare feet while his mother tries on several costumes. I saw this firsthand a couple of weeks ago. 

Let's go to 1968. Sure it was a tumultuous time in the history of our country. Leap year, Vietnam War, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, Richard Nixon was elected, etc. 

All of that can be forgotten just by looking at this cover.

Treasury of Christmas Ideas, 1968. What a perfect and sweet cover. Little girl with her yellow and red made from used bedsheets ensemble and doily tights with a sweet little beagle puppy staring earnestly at her. I had a beagle once and I bet that thing is eager to tear up the Christmas tree after he is done sizing up the human. Does anybody still use that tinsel? We used it growing up and I think we were still finding it in August.

Tangerine Egg Nog. I usually have two or three glasses of egg nog a year. One is to remind me of the taste, another is to be festive, and the last is to end out the season. To me it has the consistency of snot after a couple days' worth of Mucinex. I have to remember it every year. It's kind of like when I lived in Wisconsin and had to go to the state fair to get a cream puff. Tangerine Egg Nog though. Two quarts of milk, 12 egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and a can of frozen tangerine juice concentrate. Can anyone find a can of frozen tangerine juice concentrate anymore? Eggs and citrus.

Tuna Christmas Tree with Pimiento ornaments and a parsley tinsel. Look! It's a precursor to The Elf on the Shelf! Creepy little bastard.

Flaky Christmas Tree. The glass half empty crowd can look at it like a pile of green animal shit. I see it that way too. Or the optimists can see it for the corn flakes, green food coloring, corn syrup, mess for what it is. Either way, this will be something that someone makes and brings out of tradition or obligation but it's likely not going to be touched.

Ring-O-Chocolate Yule Logs. I can see the Pinterest caption on it. "PIN NOW! Must make later!"

The ever imposing fruitcake.

Be Watt-Wise and remember to save yourself the hassle next year and be neat with your lights. Putting them in a ball out of frustration can be a bad thing. Also, if your house lights dim, you have too much wattage.

Lights and tinsel in front of a mirror to double the gawdy effect. There's that shade of red again. Starburst light displays and a not fully decorated tree. Either that or there are toddlers in the house. I've been there.

"Out of Polish folklore come Babouschka and her friends, lighting a dark Christmas night." I've been searching for any type of folklore and haven't found anything. In Polish that is. Somehow, I think history might have been changed up a bit because this book was published in the 1960s and any Christmas type folklore with "Babushka (not Babouschka) is Russian. Allow me to crumple Babouschka and her friends and construct a tinfoil hat. I think I'm on to something.

Instead of giving "new life" to a 1, 2, or 3 lb coffee can, I think it would be safer for humanity and the sanity of our children if I just threw them away.

If that doesn't put you in the holiday spirit before Halloween, then really I don't know what will.

U.N.T.

Edit: I just realized that I spelled "Christmas" wrong. I forgot to put the "t". It has been fixed and I feel like someone who walked around all day with something in my teeth or toilet paper hanging out of my jeans, interacted with several people, and nobody bothered to tell me!! The red is for embarrassment. I am surprised my eagle eyed daughter did not notice it!