Cozy Christmas coffee
Photo by Toa Heftiba / Unsplash

I'm just saying here. Watch what you listen to when the season starts

The day after Thanksgiving, a holiday we really, really need to rebrand and rethink in America, is full of portents. Some shop, some overdose on football, others trim the tree, some of us, well.

In America, Christmas- and all the other religious holidays too-but mostly Christmas- begins in July. The store end-caps shove off the July Fourth stuff and load up on pumpkins and witches long before our swimsuits are done drying for the year.

If you were brave enough to wear one, that is, just saying.

This year I spent most of that time overseas, blessedly unaware of the behemoth that is the holiday season, fully six months of every year, and stretching into January with The Returns Business.

By the Big Day I am so sick of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree I could nearly do a Lauren Boebert. But I digress (not really, just saying).

At least there is one thing I really can look forward to:

Mannheim Steamroller music.

But it may be dangerous for your health. At least mine.

To wit: every single year when Black Friday dawns, the first thing I put into my DVD player (YES I still have one) is a Mannheim Steamroller disc, to play Deck the Halls, wake up the neighbors and do my Snoopy Happy Dance.

A few years back I did that while still living in Denver. I had a wood floor (this is pertinent, stay with me) and I was in socks and a sweater. Thoughts of Tom Cruise and Risky Business come to mind.

I threw in my disc and out came:

Instantly I leapt into the air and starting dancing madly around, skidding on the floor. My neighbors were used to it. They used to throw pennies on my deck.

To get me to stop.

Didn't work.

However this one particular early Thanksgiving dinner-hangover morning I was in fine fettle. I was in mid-skid, deliriously happy, when I hollered out

BRING ON THE GRANOLA!!!!!!!!!!

At the top of my lungs, no less.

WTF?

Stopped me dead in my tracks.

Bring on the granola?

With Deck the Halls continuing its merry tune, I padded soberly into the toilet and stood there, staring at my face.

Staring At Point Blank
Photo by Marshal Quast / Unsplash

Something in the stuffing?

Too many pieces of pecan pie?

Early onset (Don't Say It)?

I don't even like granola.

The only diagnosis is to blame Chip Davis, but that's just lame. If I weren't inherently strange in the first place, Steamroller music would just be...music.

Look. It's called Silly Season for a reason. After six months of incessant Holiday Cheer, we may just be so full of it we're dangerous to ourselves and others.

So kindly be warned, if you are feeling extra crispy this year.

If Mannheim Steamroller flips your switch, make sure someone is standing nearby with a fire extinguisher.

I was out on a walk in downtown Vienna and there they were. I think it speaks for itself. How someone can do what these two are doing is beyond me. But there is a lot in this world that is beyond me. And that is OK. It is also my first photo published on unsplash. So let’s see where this is gonna lead to.
Photo by Dominik Vanyi / Unsplash

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