the holiday rush

It's hard to believe that the year is already in the second-to-last month. I've been building and building towards halloween, filling my days with decorations and crafts and spooky movies, and in one rather uneventful night it's all done with. Holidays are all like that, really. The anticipation and building towards them is almost always better than the day itself.

Then it's over, suddenly, in a span of hours. You wake up the next morning and realize that you'll have to take all of those decorations down. Throw away the jack-o-lanterns that have started to fall in on themselves. Take down the lights. Wrap and pack all of the little glass skulls and ghosts and pumpkins.

This time of year there is no rest to be had. I was in Target on Saturday and they were already playing Christmas music. The TV is full of ads for jewelry and toys, and they've started putting up garlands at the malls. Soon Christmas will become a relentless hammer of advertising and decorations, beating everyone into holly-jolly submission.

I am of course excited about the prospect of decorating for Christmas this year. It's our first house together, and I'm picturing where I'll put the tree, and how I'll put snowmen on the staircase and wrap the banister with garland. I've started stitching lots of little ornaments out of felt and beads and turning my eye towards gifts.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a break, though. To space things out a little more, to relax and breath in between the holidays. Instead the time from September to January becomes a constant bombardment of the senses, where we go from shrieking ghouls to laughing santas, with a turkey and some pilgrims thrown in somewhere in the middle. It's also a time where you start to feel, more than anything, what you do not have and must sacrifice in favor of necessary things. It's been a hard year for a lot of people, and for many it will only get worse.

On the other hand, perhaps having the holidays all bunched together like this is easier in some ways. In a three month span it's done with, over, gone for another whole year. You can pack away the decorations and forget about the whole thing, until Fall comes around again and suddenly the stores smell like cinnamon and cloves, and everything turns into a riot of color and want, want, want.

Today when I go home I'll pack away all of my halloween things, and eat whatever candy was left over after the horde of trick-or-treaters last night. I don't bother decorating for Thanksgiving. My only interest in that particular holiday is the dinner that my sister makes, and the introduction of pumpkin pie into my diet. Soon enough Thanksgiving will come and go, and the very next day I'll put up my first Christmas tree.

I'll miss my jack-o-lanterns, though.

Here Comes Santa Clause

About two weeks ago I went to Macy's on a quest for new pillows. Our current ones are getting to that "too flat to be comfortable" stage, so I figured I'd check out the sales and see if they had anything that appealed to me.

They keep the housewares on the third floor at the Macy's here, so as I rode up the escalator, I found myself at eye level with something that I did not quite expect to see.

Christmas decorations. Directly across from the top of the escalator, Macy's had set up their Christmas department. Artificial trees festooned with blown glass ornaments glittered in the glow of a thousand little twinkly lights. Tinsel adorned the walls and the railings. I think if you went into the Christmas department and stood still for more than a minute, you'd sprout a fine patina of glitter like mold growing on bread.

I am of course all for Christmas. I like it well enough. I can be holly jolly and dreaming of a white christmas while I deck the halls. But it's not even October yet. Halloween hasn't come and gone. Thanksgiving has yet to pass. Isn't it a little too early for the dizzying displays of Christmas cheer? I need the time to enjoy the smell of pumpkin spice and cloves before they start trotting out the freshly cut pine and apple cinnamon scents in stores. Give me a little more time with my gargoyles and pumpkins and rubber bats before you start assaulting my senses with Santa's plump and cheerful visage.

That being said, I have started to keep an eye out for Christmas presents. I've already found something for my mother. But I still want to look around and see grinning jack-o-lanterns while I peruse the stores. Give me garlands of felted ghosts, or give me..well. Give me garlands of tinsel, apparently.

Smile!

I've had more sessions than I care to count with the student dentists. Each appointment consists of some new torture. I've had so many x-rays taken that whenever I brush my teeth, I look in the mirror and can clearly picture each blue-white phantom of roots and pulp. I know what each of my fillings look like, where the cavities are, and the empty gap where my molar used to be.

They took molds the week after the x-ray session, which was one of the more unpleasant experiences. I have never had dental molds taken before. The paste tasted like mint and windex, and it crept towards the back of my throat like some terrible swamp-dwelling blob. If the molding process was unpleasant, the removal of the molds were even worse. It felt like my teeth were getting pulled out as slowly as possible.

Last week's session was the mounting of the freshly made replicas. This involved a device that measured the angle of my jaw. It had two extensions that hooked into my ears and a metal plate covered with impression gel that I had to bite down on. They tightened the plate with a vice handle. I felt like they should have been wearing robes and asking me if I had consorted with the devil while they did it. After yanking the metal plate out of my mouth, they took the plaster replicas of my teeth and gums and mounted them to the whole contraption. It was rather creepy looking, to say the least, like a prop from a horror movie.

I have a break from them until the 21st, which is when they'll start working in earnest. I'm afraid of what else they have in store for me.

The cost of it all is rather daunting, but it's not something I can ignore any longer. I'd rather not get to the point where I need root canals (though one tooth might already be there). We have set a limit on Christmas this year, which is something I was already panning on doing, especially after my insurance company sent me a letter telling me my premium was going up. Not by much, but enough to make me wince a little.

But my jewelry sales have picked up somewhat for the holidays, and I've got a roof over my head and enough to cover my bills, so I'm thankful for that. I can live without new shoes for a while, and even with a limit on christmas I can get some pretty good gifts for everyone (I am the queen of bargains).