There are only 18 days or so until "it's finally over day". I don't like saying this but I am saying it. For the longest time I started the Christmas season very early, before Thanksgiving even. Larry Duhaime and I would take the afternoon off. He was a salesman and I was sort of his boss but we would both take the afternoon off and go toy shopping. We both had a bunch of kids and we both loved to buy toys. We would stash them in the car trunk, pile them up in the office around our desks, even sneak a few into the house when no one was home. This would go on and off for the next month or so leading up to Christmas Eve and scenes like this one when everything was simple....or at least seemed to be.
This little homely shot was in 1965. For a lot of reasons it was easy to ignore the reality of Vietnam, The civil rights wars, the recent near death experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis...all that kind of stuff and simply bask in the fun and anticipation of Christmas.
Now it's not the same. I fret and moan and mark January 2 down in my head as "it's finally over" day. The whole holiday season grinds to a halt and I begin to hope that something will happen in the next ten months that will let me get back to just "taking the afternoon off" and going toy shopping next Christmas.
