businesses put up the Christmas decorations and started the Christmas muzak instead of the day after Halloween?

before the Minderbinder Era began. We're all Consumers now.

A delightful peaceful day!

never saw much need to intentionally go to crowded spaces to shop for crap

I remember as a kid, excited because the mall didn't put the Christmas decoration up until Thanksgiving night and when you went to the mall on Friday, it was magic.

Those days are gone.. now that the retail Grinch stole Thanksgiving.

Christmas windows? Going to see those used to be a family treat. Now the nearest actual department store is about 45 minutes driving time away.

The two big competing department stores in Birmingham, Alabama in the 50s.
The automated figures and scenes in their big sidewalk windows.
Each tried to outdo the other.
It was MAGIC!

Most of the big cities... like New York, Chicago and Dallas do. Used to be a great show on HGTV about Holiday department store windows. Haven't caught it in the last couple of years.

I go around to all the department stores every year to see the Christmas windows. It is one of the things I like about the holidays.

We're gonna' have a cartoon jamboree

and that's the way I still celebrate it.

Or is that what Christmas has become?

was my favorite day or should I say night of the year. The bars and nightclubs were always packed like I'm sure they still are.

In 1981 we moved East and I was able to participate in the family tradition of my MIL and her daughters getting together to bake nut rolls, drink wine, and sing Christmas carols. No shopping.

I have no idea when it became a day for shoppers to turn into berserkers.

I don't really remember it being so bad with all the shopping shit as "news" as late as the 80's. Sure people did, but it wasn't treated like national news, let alone local.

I blame the arrival of the 24/7/365 cable news TV that had to find something to cover.

And I only worked one Friday after Thanksgiving when I started working. After that I always managed to take that day off and have a peaceful digestion day -- as I did today, smile.

I kind of like it. There are only a few people there so I can get a lot done. At least I didn't have to be there on Thanksgiving again.

... in the 60's, but really began to take off in the Reagan era. Since the turn of the century, it has become more and more absurd. As I have lived around Philly since 1966, I can only remember a few years around Pittsburgh when I was free of it.

-- Mal