Peace, Love, Joy, Irritation

I don't know about you, but until last weekend ended, I had been focused on Thanksgiving: getting to our friends' house for the weekend, making pies, eating pies. Good stuff like that. I'm just now starting to think about Christmas. 

So I was taken aback when I opened our mail the Friday after Thanksgiving and found, yes, a Christmas card waiting for us. It was sitting smack on top of the pile of catalogs and bills, all proud of itself with its cheery green envelope and special holiday stamp. I appreciate that this relative (on my husband's side, naturally) wanted to send us holiday greetings. But did she really have to do it on November 27?

The postmark on this thing was for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It just gets my goat. So she had these cards picked out, purchased, signed, sealed, stamped and addressed well before Thanksgiving even hit. I haven't even thought about cards yet. I haven't taken a picture of my kids, gone to get the photo copied, bought a roll of stamps to mail them all. This isn't an anomaly with this card-sender, either. She does her mailing this early every year. I think she likes to be first. 

Of course, I know the early holiday card people only mean well. Maybe they're so excited about the holidays they want to kick them off as soon as possible. But clearly I'm a grinch, and the grumpy cynic in me thinks it's in-your-face card-sending. Without saying a word, this mom is effectively conveying the message: Look how organized I am! I had my act together in early November on this one! It's passive-aggressive, that card. Or maybe just plain aggressive. Would it have killed her to wait until December 10th to pop them in the mail, if only to make the rest of us feel a bit better about our procrastinating selves?

(She's probably already finished her shopping, too. What am I saying? I'll bet she had her gifts wrapped by August.)

The thing I dislike about the December holidays is the rush. It starts on Black Friday -- sometimes even on Thanksgiving day -- and really doesn't end until January 2. We race around buy that DVD player that's 40% off, buy tons of presents no one really needs, buy food and teacher presents and extra bottles of wine. We race to send out cards to everyone we know, decorate the house and the tree, throw parties, bake cookies and gingerbread houses, wrap dozens of presents, and make sure we didn't forget to pick up something for that uncle who's bound to show up unexpectedly. It's exhausting and in the midst of it all, it's easy to forget why we even do any of it. I'd just like to just savor the mellowness of the gift-free Thanksgiving as long as I can, without being thrown on the Christmas treadmill the very next morning. It's a shock to the system.

But if this mom is going to play card-to-card combat, I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and dive in. Next year, of course, I won't have my overly-complicated and time-consuming holiday mailing done any earlier than I usually do, but I think I'll trot myself over to the card store to pick up a special one just to send to her.  Right after Halloween. And if that doesn't do it, maybe Labor Day would be a nice occasion to wish her a blessed and joyous holiday season.

Would it be obnoxious if I sent her one right New Year's 2009, celebrating Christmas 2010?

Michelle Bowers is a Sunday columnist for Westport Patch. You can also read more about her on her blog www.momonthefrontlines.blogspot.com.