Painting color drenched artworks of places and things I love
“Look Charlie, let’s face it. We all know Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big eastern syndicate you know.” ~Lucy Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas. 1965
In 1965,this little animated feature cartoon by Charles Schultz, A Charlie Brown Christmas, lamented the growing commercialization of the Christmas holiday. Can you imagine what they would say about it today?
Today I had the day off from sitting with the Princess and I had some errands to run. I’m not ready to run around with her in my car. I don’t have one of those car seat things yet anyway. But she’s still small and I’d rather be at home with her until she gets a little bigger. So the days we’re not together I do my own things.
While I was out I remembered I needed those flood lights for my kitchen. One by one they blew out and I had no back up bulbs. I stopped in a nearby store that once was a 5&10. Remember those? Dark and big with creaky wood floors, it was fun to look around and find just about anything you could think of. Well, they renovated it and now it’s all bright, shiny and new. Rats! They still have everything, but I liked the way it used to look. It reminded me of being a kid and rummaging through Woolworth’s. Is anyone going to remember Woolworth’s anymore? Anybody remember the luncheonette counter at Woolworth’s? I do.
So I looked in this store to no avail. Plenty of light bulbs, not the ones I needed. I decided to visit one of those huge and inexpensive hardware stores, Home Depot. Plenty of light bulbs, not the ones I needed. No luck.
Next door to this Home Depot is Marshall’s, a designer discount store. Also big. Would it hurt to just take a quick look around? I thought not, so I did. Guess what? I couldn’t wait to leave! I did a run through and I was done. Why did I run out so quickly? Christmas had exploded in that store!
I love Christmas, but not the craziness that comes with it and every year it seems to get worse. If I had been out shopping in October and saw Christmas stuff out I would have to leave. I’m not ready for it until after I see Santa Claus at the end of the NYC Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! Don’t show it to me months before.
The whole store was decorated. The gift items were out, all red and green and gold and tinsel and Santa Claus. You name it, they had it ready for gift giving. But I’m not ready. All I wanted to do today was buy those light bulbs and all I got was the anxiety of what gift to give who. Yikes!
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.
~Dr. Seuss