The Most Wonderfulest Time in the Year

We are about to descend into the holiday season in just a few short weeks--sooner, probably, if Hallmark has anything to say about it. The season of cliches, Target, and the little baby Jesus and another year of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty, the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and other slighty terrifying shows produced in the early seventies that continue to return again and again and again, no matter how much you might hate animatron or little green monsters who mistreat their dogs. I suppose they might play Nightmare on Christmas Street or whatever that Tim Burton movie was called, but it seems that the film reels from the olden days will sustain, especially now that all those people who were kids when the TV programs appeared now have kids of their own to watch them with. Here's the thing about Rudolph: I don't like the way he talks. I know he has a problem with his nose, but why does he have to sound like he's stuffed up? Can't he just blow his nose? And I don't like the way those little puppets close their eyes--it reminds me that they're not real. And I really hate the part in Grinch where the dog is teetering on the mountain with his waist cinched in by the belt. And I also don't like Cindy Lou Hoo, for that matter. If I remember correctly, she doesn't have feet and also, why does she have antennaes? That's creepy.

SEE? This year for Halloween, I cut out a bunch of construction paper things--a cat head, a witch on a broom, a red devil, vampire, Jack-o-lantern, etc. but nothing terribly frightening. Nothing as scary as Cindy Lou Hoo, though I did suggest to Shawn that we put a big picture of George Bush up--the most terrifying thing in this world.