There's Still Some Turkey Left

In my mind, Halloween was just last week and Thanksgiving Day is off in the distant future. So it was quite jarring to walk into the Winn-Dixie grocery store today, and see Christmas crap everywhere. Couldn't they at least put up some Thanksgiving decorations for a few days, and confine Christmas to December? Mark has assured me that Christmas decorations have been up in many of the stores for the last two months, but since I don't shop much this is the first I have seen of it. It's a good thing that Mark is totally involved with his Thanksgiving feast preparations. He won't start bugging me to help him decorate for Christmas until the last of the turkey is gone.

The fact that I live in Florida, and it always feels like summer doesn't help my mindset. My memories of Christmas in Chicago are linked to visions of snow, and, ice. In Florida you string up Christmas lights on the house, with sweat rolling down your back and into your eyes. It just isn't the same.

I often think about spending another Christmas in Chicago before the end of my time. I'd like to go shopping on Michigan Avenue again, with all the pretty little lights on the trees, and smiling people scurrying up the boulevard with gay packages under their arms, while an icy cold wind blows up my coat. I'd like to feel the thrill of a car spinning out during a slush storm on Lake Shore Drive again. Before I die, I would love to relive the experience of a taxi cab splashing me with dirty, icy, water, as I try frantically, to wave him down in a blizzard. Then I would like to stand on an El stop platform with bags of gifts, while the north wind whips down the tracks and sleet pelts my face. Maybe, if I got to experience all of that again, I would finally appreciate what I have here in Florida.