Six-year old Elijah Patino of Fords tries to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus at the 27th annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony held at The Heritage at Clara Barton in Edison on December 1.
Reader Submitted
I love the Christmas holiday. I do not subscribe, however, to the theory that every day should be Christmas. Like most cherished things in life, Christmas is special because it comes but one time every year. Halloween would lose its charm if we had costumed children knocking at our doors for treats every day. Relatives would ultimately take a pass on the turkey and pumpkin pie if Thanksgiving dinner got served up each night.
Similarly, the likes of “Holy Night,” holiday sweaters, Santa photos and tinseled trees lose their luster when the Christmas holiday pushes up against the middle of November. To be sure, the encroachment of Christmas on Halloween not only takes away from the fall season of hayrides, apple cider and rainbow foliage, it also makes “Jingle Bells” grow tinny, Santa seem like a guest that won’t leave and Christmas tree needles dry and brown well in advance of the big day.
All the above brings me to the ultimate point of my pontificating: in past years, my husband and I have eagerly looked forward to bundling up one mid-December night and strolling through our neighborhood to view all the houses prettily glowing with Christmas lights. However, as each year passes, the lights and decorations are going up earlier and earlier. This year, houses were ablaze in whites, reds and greens halfway through November. What happened to fall? What happened to Thanksgiving? What happened to the sanctity of Christmas that comes from limiting the season to, at the very least, the last calendar month of the year?
I propose a Christmas 2018 that brings us back to what Christmas is meant to be – a unified surge of love, lights and warmth, which only the sanctity and fleeting splendor that the true Christmas season can bring. So as to maximize these feelings of the season, I propose that townships set a date in December upon which its residents unveil together their seasonal decorations (all denominations welcome) in a spirit of community and friendship. Let’s all come outside together to embrace a magical time, to see the beauty of the lights and decorations and to feel the bond that brings us all together during the most wonderful, and purposefully ephemeral, time of the year.
Megan S. Murray
Aberdeen
