Sundays Scribblings.....Under The Fall!

I love fall. I love this countryside in fall. I adore the burnt oranges, the Cavender's catalogs, the fall harvest, trail rides, and the weaning of calves. I love the football it brings with it, not to mention the hockey and snow skiing. Bonfires and quite possibly hot chocolate, caramel apples, and roasted pumpkin seeds. Logs in the fireplace, lit to take the chill off. Crisp mornings against a clear blue sky, hunting season, and the turning of the leaves. Let's not forget, Homecoming, Pilgrims and Indians represented in school plays, and hayrides. Cinnamon scented votives and knee-high boots, fattened squirrels and clocks falling back.

If I were prone to such things, here's where I would write one of those open letters and toss it into the vast beyond to absolutely no one in particular. And apparently I am very much prone to such things. So Dear radio: PLEASE DO LET US HAVE FALL.

Soon our FM stations will inundate us with Christmas music, and I for one hate it. You've barely had time to make your way through the fall harvest corn maze and carve your pumpkin with the explicit intent of scaring the neighborhood children to the very verge of incontinence before they start with the not so dulcet tones of Springsteen's Santa What Not is Coming to Albuquerque and Madonna's insipid Santa Baby (PUKE). It simply isn't time, and like a preemie who hasn't warmed all the way through, I'm simply not ready.

So please, let me have my Irish Coffees and gallons of not particularly seasonal mulled red wine before I go there, would you? Let me curse dirty leaves that make their way into my pickup as well as my front entry way and one or more OSU Cowboys losses or Good Lord willing, wins--Long Live Cowboys. Let me be well into sweaters, hoodies, and scarves and, for the other unfortunate few, knitted hats that don't in any color scheme match their coats, other that to make them look like a burglar begging to be caught, before you strike. At least rest until the storing of canned cranberry jellies have passed. Because cranberry and a blue Christmas? It just isn't a good look for anyone!  And I am quite sure Santa won't mind one bit, although I do......

Then when we are ready, when the masses face frozen car doors, calves born in the middle of the night, punks with chapped cheeks, and the warm embrace of family holiday guilt, bestow upon us the Bing, Gene Autry, Burl Ives, and pretty much anything Perry Como. I'll support a three-week spree, MAX. And when New Year's passes, know that it's time to move on, time to resist the urge to start building the playlist for Christmas in July. Because like fruitcake and the Celine Dion box set, no one ever really asked for that anyway. For truth be told, there is no gift an imaginary Santa could bring that remotely compares to the only reason for the Season, Father God's gift of the birth of his only son, sent to save us from a fate worse than Christmas credit card debt. For you see I love Christmas as much as the next gal. I've just never understood how so few seem to remember the greatest gift EVER given.