what's cooking?

Don't we all wonder why, on this decorating thing?

I'm, of course, talking about the roll out of Christmas decorations everywhere from Costco, malls and every housing tract that doesn't have an HOA forbidding putting anything up until the day after Thanksgiving.

We live less than a mile away from the country's saddest outlet mall-The Outlets of Anthem.  I say the saddest because there are almost as many empty stores as there are occupied ones.  Our food court is pretty cool-but if you don't have places for people to shop, why would they come to eat?

I digress.

About the end of the third week of October, the outlets newsletter to the residents hyped that our yearly "state's tallest Christmas tree was almost here".

Really?  We hadn't even celebrated Halloween and here was the Christmas tree en route?  Not only that, but the much awaited traditional celebratory tree lighting/concert/Santa's village booth would be dedicated on my birthday-November 18th.

Basically, the mall is now celebrating Christmas long before we celebrate both Halloween or Thanksgiving.  Again, they aren't the only ones kind of "jumping the gun".

Steve and I made an unplanned trip to Costco because the sensor lamps we purchased broke.  They had a 5 year warranty and we're only on year 3, so off we went.  As you probably surmised, while there, we picked up a few items that we were out of plus, the kind staff at the hearing aid concession tweaked Steve's equipment because, well, they needed it and they could.

What did we see?  Almost the entire mid-section of the store had been cleared of any and all summer/fall items and replaced by Christmas baskets, trees, decorations, toys and a host of (no lie) special Christmas foods to both order and send as gifts.

We're talking November 2nd folks.  I'm all for getting things done early and in a timely manner, but this seems just a tad extreme.

Let's slow down and savor the year, not rush it.  Life is really short we shouldn't barrel through it as though we're trying to break the time continuum factor.

Take Halloween, we did have a lot less kids this year-we only bought a 3 pound bag of candy and we throughout probably a third of it.  Most of the kids came between 6-7:30.  Steve was off so we sat outside on our swing and passed out the goodies together until Adam, Sam and our own "strong Batman" and "Poppi" came up and asked us to walk and do "Happy, happy Halloween.  I love candy".

We took turns.  I went first and came back and then Steve finished up the other half of the area.  When he got back, it seemed the night was over.  So, we took our leftovers, coffee cups and phones in for the evening and shut the door.  Sarah said no one came to her house at all!

And with the closing of the door, there left Halloween, 2017.

It was fun to see the kids, the costumes and have a very delightful 80 degrees to sit on the porch and enjoy.  Here's hoping that everyone takes a huge cleansing breath, slows down and really tries to enjoy not just the overview, but the singular moments of what's left of the year.