Merry Hallogivingmas!

Just thought of something else that makes us feel old.

Besides getting older.

And Paul McCartney turning 66.

We don’t get a full twelve months in our years anymore.

In fact, we haven’t gotten a full twelve months since we were in, give or take, the second or third grade.

Oh, the calendars still offer up 365 days and the sun and moon are both in the proper rotation.

It’s not pre-emption.
It’s about perception.

Think back to the time when your life was very clearly and specifically defined by the seasons and/or the events that took place during the calendar year.

When we were kids.

And in those days, I think it fair to say that, for a lot of us, the “year” started in September with the beginning of school.

If your classroom was anything like mine, it was decorated in fall colors and we all enjoyed a respite from the readin’, writin’ and rithmetic’ portions of the school day by cutting autumn leaves, in various shades or brown and orange, out of construction paper and seeing them proudly displayed around the room, usually tacked just underneath that alphabet thing, the one that showed both block and cursive print. (If you don’t know what cursive print is, by the way, the whole point of this blog is going to be lost on you, so feel free to move on to You Tube or wherever it is all of you young people hang out these days.)

And for the better part of six weeks or more, we didn’t even give a thought to the next “season” on the list.

Until, say, around the middle of October, when we started cranking out the ghosts and goblins and jack o lanterns that let us know that Halloween was imminent.

And I honestly don’t remember ever giving a single thought to sitting down to have turkey and dressing with the family until days, even weeks, after the last Thin Mints were history.

We’d probably even eaten the jellybeans by then.

(Oh we complained on Halloween night about the raw deal of getting jellybeans instead of chocolate from some people, but by mid November, sugar is sugar. Any old port in a storm, you know)

Then came the construction paper turkeys and thoughts of having to endure the cranberries to enjoy the cool whip.

And, of course, so it went…Thanksgiving spent its time with us before giving way to the twelve days of Christmas, followed by Auld Lang Syne and then Valentine’s Day, moving through St Paddy’s Day, Easter and then, of course, the home stretch toward the finish line.

Summer vacation.

Those years were magical for a number of reasons.

Not the least of which was that they were Biblical.

Ecclesiastes.

To every thing, there is a season.

Well, okay, to you sixties heathens, that would be The Byrds.

But you get my drift.

Every thing had its season. And every season had its allotted time.

We didn’t think about Thanksgiving in September and we didn’t worry while we were trick or treating about what we were gonna get our sister for Christmas without having to spend any of our own money. (wait! Jelly beans!)

God knows we didn’t have to navigate through the Christmas Shop at Sears before the Thin Mints were all gone.

Every thing had its season.

And every season had its allotted time.

And so the year ran along in “real time”.

Twelve months.
365 days.

Which brings me around to my original point.

Another reason we feel like we’re getting older.

Because the sands are no longer simply moving through the hourglass.

They’re pouring.

Not really.

Feels like it though, doesn’t it?

When I was in the second grade, the presidential election campaign began “officially” on the Labor Day weekend

We’re still two or more months away from the major party political conventions.

And the two candidates have already been chosen and the “general election” campaign is underway.

No wonder we feel like time is flying.

It’s only June.
But it feels like September.

And, oh my god…..
I haven’t gotten anything for Aunt Bernice yet.