Christmas Creep

Our jack-o-lantern is well on its way to being made into pumpkin pie; the seeds have been roasted; Andrew's already anxious to get (all three of) our Halloween decorations put away; we're cruising toward Thanksgiving break; is it possible that we've had a bit of Christmas creep in our house?

It's no secret that Andrew is not in favour of Christmas creep—you know, when Christmas creeps into Thanksgiving's territory. This is a thing I didn't know existed until moving down to the States because in Canada Thanksgiving is in October and coexists peacefully with Halloween. Singing Christmas songs at the beginning of November was never a crime in my household until I married Andrew. He frowns upon such activities, which means he's usually frowning at me about them because I am the most common perpetrator.

But last week we went to the library so that I could vote and so that we could check some books out. We figured the most productive/less insanity-inducing way to get both of those errands done would be to have me take Benjamin to the polls while Andrew and the girls hit the stacks. We split up at the parking lot after making plans to reunite in the children's section.

So off to the polling booths I went with Benjamin while Andrew herded the girls into the library.

Voting was fairly easy. I stood in line, got my form, filled out a few bubbles, fed my form into the scantron machine, got my sticker and was out of there before you could say "democracy."



Andrew, it seems, had a harder time curating books with a two children in tow. When I found him he was sitting on a bench looking exhausted while the girls flitted around the library peeking through windows, tripping on carpets, and knocking books off shelves. I took the children from Andrew while he checked the books out, then we piled into the van and went home.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I sent the girls to the library bin to choose books for story time and a suspicious red and green book with sparkly letters landed on my lap.

"What's this?" I asked with feigned indignation. "Could it be a Christmas book? Let's see... A Bad Kitty...Christmas," I read from the front cover. "It is a Christmas book! But however did it end up at our house at this time of year?!"

Andrew looked at me in surprise. "Hey, I was just worried about keeping the kids under control. I wasn't paying attention to what books they picked out!"

"But I was keeping the children under control while you were checking the books out," I reminded him.

"But I was trying to get the machine to work; it's not easy!"

"Face it," I told him. "You checked out a Christmas book in October!"

"But I..." he stammered.

"It's alright," I said soothingly. "It happens to the best of us. Christmas is sneaky."

"You're not going to read it?" he gulped.

"Oh, I'm going to read it," I assured him.

And we did.

And we survived.

Since Andrew's the one who popped the lid on Christmas this year I'm not going to feel an ounce of guilt if/when I start humming Christmas carols next week. It's hard for me to remember to not get into the Christmas spirit because I'm just not used to bothering putting it off. With only seven years of marriage under my belt I have two full decades of not observing the No-Christmas-Before-Thanksgiving rule to offset any influence Andrew has had in my life. It's not that I don't like Thanksgiving or wish to underplay Thanksgiving; quite the contrary—Thanksgiving celebrations began at our house the second Monday in October! I simply see no wrong in whistling "The Drummer Boy" in November while doing the dishes. I believe that Thanksgiving and Christmas should be friends, not rivals.

So if/when I "mess up" this year I'll just remind him that this year Christmas creep is all his fault. Period.