I don’t know what happened, but somewhere along the way, the day after Thanksgiving became the day when Christmas trees are set up in homes and decorations are put out.

It also became the day when the Christmas shopping season “officially” started. It has been made very clear by the watchers of this day that has become known as “Black Friday” that our entire nation’s economy rests on this day. Never mind that many are still paying off last year’s Christmas!

How did this happen?

How did the holiday season become such a frenzied, pressure-packed observance-not for the birth of Jesus Christ-but of whether you’ll get this year’s hottest, must-have Christmas toy? This year, it is the Zhu-Zhu pet, by the way. Previous winners have been Singing Elmo, Tickle Me Elmo, Dancing Elmo and Elmo, Ellarry and Elcurley! Sheesh!

And where is Santa? At the malls? Nope!

Santa can be found at the pet stores having his picture taken with your favorite Schnauzer, Labrador, cat or boa constrictor.

In an exclusive interview with Santa, he told me that he would gladly put up with the poop, pee and vomit from the animals who act like animals than with the kids and parents who act like animals AND for better pay, apparently.

Santa further explains: “No one has time for me anymore. Shoppers don’t want to miss out on any Door Buster sales. Parents will drag their very unhappy kids along with threats of “no Play Station this year” for the chance to save another 40-50 percent on their next purchase. The kids who do come to see me only complain about what they didn’t get LAST YEAR! So; this is a nice change, dog breath and all!”

Remember; you heard it here. Santa prefers dog breath over baby’s breath!

Meanwhile, back to the days that were my youth, I remember that some years, we could not get a Christmas tree until they went on sale somewhere around December 22^nd. Needless to say, panic was starting to settle in little me!

There were years when Mom and Dad would send us to the movies on Christmas Eve, so that they could shop for the discounted merchandise, get it home and wrap it before we got home from the movies. For years, I thought that they were very good at hiding our presents when in fact, they hadn’t bought them yet.

Christmas was always slim at my house. After all, I have seven sisters, so Mom and Dad had to be careful to equally distribute funds spent on presents for us, which wasn’t much, because Dad was making less than $100 a week and Mom wasn’t working at the time.

And I probably wouldn’t have gotten so upset, if I hadn’t seen the injustices perpetrated by my friends. They got ALL the hot toys and in later years, all the hot girls. To this day, I can barely look at them during our class reunions.

Seriously though; even back in the days of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver and Lassie, where wayward thinking was always reined in at the end of every TV episode, we were hung up on the “me” of Christmas and not the message.

And I DO suffer guilt for that, because as a kid, I only knew that I wanted “stuff” that I wasn’t getting from Mom and Dad (Santa) and I blamed them; something that I still regret.

The truth is that I had a GREAT childhood and Winter was a grand time to be a kid.

The neighborhood snowman contests, watching Dad and the other neighborhood men-Ted Ericson, Bob Overbaugh, Johnny Girven, Findley Jones, Elner Lundeen, Leo Windish, Harold Stephenson, Jimmy Girkin and Bob Baldwin-putting up the big candy canes that was Candy Cane Lane on NW 5^th Avenue and then, taking a drive in our station wagon as a family of ten to see the Christmas decorations throughout Galva is a priceless memory.

At school, we would have snowball fights and build igloos at recess. The city had a skating rink prepared and maintained by Herb Rodgers and we would spend entire weekends there. When I got older, I played a lot of hockey there and would impress the girls with my ice skating skills. Yeah; I could skate backwards, spin and stop on a dime!

At church, we would put on the Christmas play and one year, I played one of the Wise Men, though I cannot remember if I carried gold, frankincense or mur, but it was probably mur. Our church youth group would go to the homes of our elders to sing Christmas carols for them and we would then go to Wasson Nursing Home. We would finish, go back to the church and have hot chocolate and cookies.

On many Sundays during the winter, we would travel to Bishop Hill to visit my aunt and uncle, where we would take our sleds and toboggans to Chilberg’s farm to sled down their big hill that ended at their pond. It was great!

Even in college, winter sports were still a big part of growing up. We would “borrow” the plastic food trays from the cafeteria, sit on them and would “sled” down the big hill outside of our dorm. They were very fast, could not be steered and the ride would often end with injury, but it was fun!

And do you know what?

I would gladly give up all of the “stuff” that I never got-and it’s a very, very long list-just to go back and do it all over again.

What I came to realize is that the greatest gifts of the season are not wrapped and under a tree!

I want to wish my family and friends much love and joy during this holiday season, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

TCSS.

 Art “ChiefReason” Goodrich

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