Too soon Santa... (and other humbug)

I remember seeing Santa at the end of a Thanksgiving parade once, when I was a kid, and thinking it was weird. It wasn’t Christmas; it was Thanksgiving. Too soon Santa, too soon. Why does it always have to be about you, old man?

Within my lifetime the celebration of Christmas has lengthened by about a month. It starts a month earlier than it did when I was little. It used to be early December. But he time I was a teenager, it was right after Thanksgiving. And now it's November first. Some stores are starting to put out Christmas stuff before Halloween even. WTF!? (Maybe viewing Halloween as the time you’re supposed to start thinking about Christmas is the fault of the people who made the Nightmare Before Christmas.) What is driving this desire to celebrate Christmas for such a long period of time? Is it just ordinary consumerism? Or is it an unconscious desire to find or manufacture some kind of happiness and distraction from the horror of our contemporary lives? 

For those of us, like me (yes, yes, it’s always about me), who do not have friends or loved ones with whom they will be celebrating a winter holiday, I fear that the Christmas lovers’ emphasis on “Christmas! Christmas! Christmas! It’s CHRISTMAS!!!” for the last two months of the year only serves to remind us of how sad and pathetic our lives are, how desperately alone we are. 

So, come on holly, jolly Christmas-ers, tone it down. And save it for later. (Have you never heard of delayed gratification?) Also, maybe take some time and look at the people you know who aren’t celebrating, who aren’t donning their gay apparel. Maybe include them a little. I mean, really include them, not just do a Christmas-greeting drive-by. You don’t have to adopt them for the month, just... I don't know, check and see how they’re doing. Maybe they don’t want to go to your party; then again, maybe they do. But they’re certainly not going to invite themselves. Ya know, Scrooge wasn’t always a bitter old guy. There’s a reason he’s that way. However – back to my original point – two months of mindless and shallow holiday cheer is not going to bring him around. (And by him, I mean me. As I said, it’s always about me. Isn’t it?)

new calendar

I’m thinking about calendars this morning: years and months and all that.

I think we should make a change. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen anytime soon, as we humans tend to get stuck in thinking, “This is how it is, therefore it was always this way. Or the way it was before this way just didn’t work very well. And in either case, the way it is now is the way it should always be, because it just makes sense, it’s just logical this way.”

Yeah, we humans are pretty stupid sometimes.

So, I think we could a year that’s made up of 12 lunar months. There are lunar calendars, like the Hebrew, Chinese, and the Islamic, which is why various holidays and “Chinese New year” seem to “move around”. But the calendar most of us are familiar with—the Gregorian calendar—is a solar calendar, which is why we have months of different lengths and leap years.

Well, back to my lunar calendar idea. Now whether those months are based on the approximately 28-day orbit of the moon around the earth, or the approximately 2 or 30-day phase cycle of the moon, or some mix of the two, does not matter to me.

Either way, you’ve got some “extra” days at the end of the year—somewhere between 5 and 30. So that end of the year extra time could be the winter “holiday season”. Everyone could get some extra time off, throw parties, special entertainments, end-of-the-year close-out sales, whatever.

I suppose one might argue, “What about people with birthdays at the end of the year?” Well, if there’s a standardized calendar, in which each month has the same number of days (28 or 29 or 30) each year, then the amount of “extra time” at the end of each year should be approximately the same, varying from year to year by a day or two at most. So, most people would still have a birthday every year. A small percentage wouldn’t, just like leap year babies in our calendar. They’re considered to be a year older every year, and they probably even celebrate it, even though it might not “technically” be their “birthday”.

One might also argue, “Our current Gregorian calendar works pretty well, so why change it?” Well, first, do not fear change. Second, the current winter “holiday season” that we start at or even before Thanksgiving (not even winter yet), has gotten completely ridiculous. 

So, if we thought of the “holiday season” as these extra days—especially if people got extra time off from work, school, etc—some of the stress and tension of our winter holiday season (you know, “Christmas”) might be significantly lessened, and those who dread the holidays might even be able to avoid all the annoying, overly happy, peppy, Christmasy people.

I remember at some point in school, high school probably, reading or being told about some ancient culture that did this. I don’t know what culture or cultures this was. But at the end of every year, the king of chief or maybe the priests or astronomers declared some number of extra days. The number varied a little each year, but the result was calendar correction.

Does anybody know what I’m talking about, anybody remember learning that? It just always struck me as really neat idea—a little extra time at the end of the year. Who wouldn’t want that?

Of course it’s not extra time in the sense of adding time; it’s just a different way of thinking about calendar time.

Thoughts? Anyone?

Bad Blog?

I was thinking about taking a little “naked tour” this winter, in the break between semesters. My parents were wanting me to come visit for Christmas.

yeah,  yeah...ho ho ho, whatever

I don’t go “home” much. It’s not home. My parents moved there 5 or 10 years ago. I don’t know anyone else there. And I’m just not that close to them.

Well, I thought I might visit them for a few days, so they’ll stop bugging me for a bit. And while I’m out and about, I’d visit several other friends too. Specifically people who would be okay with my being naked, and hopefully would be okay with my taking a few pictures for the blog. Nothing so specific that would identify them or their house...unless they were cool with that. They could get naked with me, or just pose clothed with me naked. Or not. I wouldn’t want to pressure anybody.

Anyway, I’m not gonna do that now. I feel like I need to stay here. Another holiday holed up alone somewhere.

For one thing, I’m kinda broke. Not desperately broke...yet. I haven’t gotten enough work this whole year—several years actually. And some of the work I’ve been doing, I’ve put much more effort into than I’m getting compensated for.

The other thing is that I need to do some writing. I haven’t been writing lately. I was planning to, expecting to do some work on a couple of scripts this fall. But it seems that doing this blog every day is diverting my daily creative impulse. When I’ve written a blog or taken a bunch of pictures and selected, edited, whatever, then I don’t feel much like working on a script.

I need to figure out how to do both without one or both suffering.

I got nothin'

I’m open to suggestions. Fear not, suggest away.

Anyway, no “naked tour” now. Maybe in the spring? Or summer? That’d be more comfortable anyway. And if you’re interested in my “naked visiting” you sometime, let me know. Invite me.