“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Everywhere you goooo! Take a look at the five and ten… it’s glistening once again. With candy canes and silver lanes that gloooow. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… toys in every store. But the prettiest sight to see is the…” OH HELL NO!
Who let these carolers in here? JOHN Q.!!! (my stuffed yellow bear sidekick). You can take that figgy pudding right back to… where the f*** did you get figgy pudding? Never mind… and you Charlie Dicken’s assclowns can go “begin to look like Christmas” somewhere else. Because it isn’t supposed to look like it yet!
But it does. Gawd help us all! It does look a lot like Christmas… every friggin where you go. It started beginning to look since the end of September. With 12-foot-tall animatronic skeletons towering over pre-lit evergreen forests and plastic jack-o-lanterns sharing shelf space with ceramic Santa mugs through October. And it starts looking a little earlier every year.
It feels like we’re heading towards a major holiday merger. A literal nightmare before Christmas if you will. Should we anticipate a Christmas Spirit Halloween store in the near future? Yes, give us costumes and candy. Give us presents and pines. And to hell with giving thanks for any of it.
Giving thanks? Yeah, you remember giving thanks… on Thanksgiving. The holiday seasons oft overlooked and ignored middle-child. When we express thankfulness for all the Hallow candy and Christ presents and everything that pre and succeeds them.
Tragically since there’s no way to market it, we are only thankful when thankfulness is trending. Something to be bragged about… err sincerely expressed in social media postings. Remember that asinine 30 days of Gratitude challenge a few years back? Where you were supposed to post something, you were thankful for daily, for each day in November?
Do we really need to be challenged in order to be thankful? Is being thankful that much of a challenge? Should we only be thankful when everyone else is?
That’s a triple negative in response. And to prove it we are going squish as much thankfulness as possible into this column for the next few weeks. Let’s set it off with that 30-day thingie. However, since I cannot continuously write, nor you incessantly read for the next consecutive 30 days, I’ll just rapidly rattle off…
Chainsaw’s 30 Thankful Things:
1. I’m thankful the presidential election is over! 2. Which means no more pointless political commercials, phone calls, emails or texts for the next 4 years. 3. Thankful for Smartfood’s Doritos flavored popcorn- the best of both worlds. 4. Gotta mention the grandkids. 5. I’m lovingly thankful for Lil Red (the spouse) for her tolerance of me at home. 6. Also, my work bestie for her tolerance of me at work. 7. Thankful for the ability to tolerate everyone else. 8. And thankful for cigarettes- so I can. 9. I’m somewhat thankful, for most of the people I work with. 10. Wholly thankful to still have a job. 11. Thankful that retirement is dawning on the distant horizon. 12. I’m grateful for having a home to go home to. 13. And that it’s not just a house. 14. I’m thankful for having food in it most of the time. 15. Especially microwave ready Philly beef and cheese calzones. 16. Grateful for good neighbors. 17. Appreciative of quiet weekend mornings. 18. With that second cup of coffee. 19. I’m thankful there are no bears around. 20. So thankful mowing season is almost over. 21. I’m thankful for my goats. 22. My dogs. 23. And thankful this is almost done because I’m running out of thanks here. 24. Ummm… chainsaws, cause how else would we travel. 25. I’m thankful daily for Fortnite… and 3rd person gaming. 26. I’m eternally grateful to the Focus for having me on for 20+ years. 27. And finding enough to write about for 20+ years. 28. A wonderful editor who tolerates my madness. 29. And I am sincerely thankful to you for reading this. 30. And right now I’m sooo thankful that I’m finished writing it.
Be sure to tune in next week! Same saw time. Same Focused channel. As we go beyond what we’re thankful for and explore who we are giving thanks to.
I welcome almost all questions, comments via Focus, or E-mail me at [email protected]. Hope to hear from ya, until then try and stay focused! See ya.
