MERRY THANKSGIVING!

Rounding the street corner on my way to meet a friend for lunch I was confronted by Pottery Barn’s display windows—the one’s you can’t avoid looking into as you walk by. Those glassed-in voids contain furniture, houseware and decorations that gleam under the spot lights. Little hypothetical rooms of your wanna-be home. So too was a glittering Christmas tree—the week after Halloween. Same story at Tiffany’s.  

I’d had a similar experience about a month before when, in the heat of our Indian summer, I strolled into a heavily air conditioned Macy’s and into a huge Christmas decoration display on the ground floor.

Righteously Nordstrom just came out with its 2015 Christmas policy: No holiday decorations until Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving). They will be “celebrating one holiday at a time.” Bravo! Nordstrom had its holiday head on straight, not putting profit before tradition. Yet it’s a wonder that store hadn’t yet fallen into the media mire that Starbucks had, for daring to reel in the Yuletide embellishments until the actual Yuletide season.

*

Back in the 1990s, I had been walking the Walnut Creek shopping district during Thanksgiving week—with visions of turkey legs and cornbread stuffing in my head—only to be blindsided by garish Christmas displays and decorations on Macy’s first floor. It was just a month until Christmas, not quite Thanksgiving Day.

My mind had snapped.

Something took ahold of me and I marched to the nearest cashier and asked to see the Macy’s Store Manager. Politely I was led up the escalator to an office where a meek man in a suit sat behind a cluttered desk. He hardly looked up, clutching his cup of coffee as he pored over sales reports. The cashier told him tht I was there to talk to him. He clearly didn’t like that idea, much less that anyone off the street might be admitted let into his little kingdom.

“What the hell are you thinking?” I had barked.

With that, the Manager and everyone outside his office, looked up. My mouth kept firing: “What happened to Thanksgiving?” and, “What about celebrating one tradition at a time?”

The man got up from his desk, introduced himself, and then proceeded to explain that this was Macy’s “pilot” store; one that experimented a bit, maybe even set trends. An extra early Christmas blitz was testing a new sales generator—to get everyone “in the spirit” a lot sooner. He smiled at the notion.

“But the window trimmings don’t even look like thanksgiving,” I exclaimed. “Did you even get those decorations out this season? You should be ashamed!” tht man stared back. I soon stomped out.

Later I confessed my Macy’s confrontation to my wife, assumed she’d have the same reaction to the much-too-early Christmas displays. I figured she’d probably agree with me. Not.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she’d snapped.

That’s when I realized that we have Christmas decorations at Thanksgiving (maybe even at Halloween) because spineless conformists allow it to happen—with their silence. Those people are everywhere.

*

As I stood before Pottery Barn and Tiffany’s—opposite each other at the “Main & Main” intersection—I made the same observation: nobody says “No.” We all walk by and grumble but we don’t say “No.” Or perhaps we go inside and buy presents like lemmings. Premature Christmas business could be compared to a lot of other things—things we should all have been rejecting for a very long time.

Standing before the big windows, I felt compelled to share that repeat revelation with my wife; enlighten her a bit. Let her know that these stores set a bad example, and that we should all stand up and collectively say “Not.”

Then I thought about what she might say back to me—just as she had so many years before…