I was in CVS on Saturday waiting on prescriptions on Saturday (if these don’t work to get rid of the month-long cold and sinus crap, I’m resorting to guillotine therapy) and noticed not one but two life-size Santa figures in the store. In my neighborhood, the main shopping drag just decked out its streetlight poles in fake Christmas greenery and red ribbons. Some of the stores got their Christmas windows up as soon as Halloween passed.

Is it just me, or are you seeing the same thing where you are? I’ve barely left the house for four weeks now, so I don’t know if this is just in my neighborhood, or if it’s everywhere. My kid tells me that the department store Nordstroms has a policy of not putting up any Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. True. Bless them. Buy something from them if you can, and thank the clerk for their anti-Christmas Creep policy.

I love the Christmas season, but I think one of the worst jobs ever would be working in a year-round Christmas ornament store. Is there a more effective way to ruin Christmas than that?

Oh, and can I just say that as a bad Orthodox Christian, I really dislike the Nativity Fast. Starting tomorrow, we can’t have meat or dairy until Christmas (Thanksgiving excepted). These are the times that try American Orthodox men’s souls. I perfectly understand the theological reasons for it, and it makes sense. The weeks leading up to the Nativity is a time of preparation for the joy of Christmas, which doesn’t begin until December 25, and runs through January 6, the Feast of Epiphany (Theophany, in the East). As strict as the Lenten fast is for the Orthodox, for me the Nativity fast is much more difficult, because of all the feasting food and cheer in the air throughout December.