Yes, it is here again and it is in your face just like the political ads were last week

The specific radio station in my city has become the Christmas station again and is playing the holiday music 24-7.  My big box stores have been decorated for about two weeks now.  The Hershey’s kisses commercial where the iconic chocolate morsels are a bell choir started playing before Halloween. Starbucks was selling the Thanksgiving Blend for about one week and now they have gone to the Christmas Blend already.  The commercial holiday season has gone big and is not going home. 

   The US presidential election has made the intensity of the Christmas Season a little tougher to handle. About one week ago we were constantly hearing negative attack ads on television, the radio and over the internet.  After the election there were demonstrations in many large US cities protesting Donald Trump’s election. One week ago we were deluged with negativity and now we are being deluged with the silver bells, deck the halls and trim the tree.         

            The holiday season is so institutionalized and ingrained in the economics of retail. Retailers expect people to buy and that they want us to shop longer hours so they increase their personnel budgets over 100 percent and then spend the rest of the fiscal year paying it back.   They are counting on Christmas for a profitable year and thus they are going to hammer us in every way they tastefully can (or maybe as gaudily as they can get away with).  Because so much seems to be at stake, they are going to exploit the sacred for all it is worth and it is in our faces even if we are burned out by the US elections that ended last week.

             With many busy people, the Christmas season can be another burden of pressure. That pressure seems to be a little worse given many of us are trying to recover from the election.   I am sure that there will be a few moments where I will want to tell the late Andy Williams to cram it when I have heard The Most Wonder Time of the Year for the 100^th time.       

            The message of the holiday season is supposed to be happiness and joy with those you love.  We are supposed to be merry and fulfilled, and the commercial establishment jumps around that idea because they really don’t want us to be fulfilled—they want us to buy something from them.    I am looking to write this season about looking for fulfillment and coping when things fall flat.  Life is not always fulfilling in and of itself. We have to look for fulfillment and create it sometimes regardless of how we feel.

            I hope that if you are looking for some coping ideas you may find some options here in the blog.  You are always welcome to go back to the previous entries and see if you can find some inspiration or coping skills you can use.