the rix mix

I sense that a lot of people are suffering from Seasonal affective disorder this year. The extension of Daylight Savings may have made the annual adjustment more difficult. Winter arrived early in Jersey as it does sometimes, ( last year it waited until January), pushing aside our unofficial 5th season of a gray & drizzly but temperate late November & early December. & summer lingered, I heard crickets on my birthday last month. We aren't ready to burrow in yet, & because of the holidays we can't. We don't want to hear about "wind chill." Most Jerseyans hope for a winter that begins with a lovely dusting of snow on Christmas Eve - the kind that covers the grass but not the roads - & creeps quietly to an end after a cloudy Groundhog Day. Daylight by then lasts noticably longer, the seed & patio furniture catalogues are landing in the mailbox, & Great Adventure is hawking season tickets.

I haven't had to find presents for an extended in-law family at Christmas since 1989, those folks for whom anything you get at any price seems inadequate, & so you think about it in September & stumble around stores indecisively for two months until you conclude that the solution is really, really nice wrapping paper & ribbon. I never had any problem finding presents for friends back when we gathered together late on Christmas Eve. I'd find many of their gifts at flea markets over the summer, mostly old books & records. I knew what was on their shelves & what would fit nicely there, & it was hard to resist giving them the stuff the same day I got it. But I also spent tedious hours wandering around outlet stores looking for specific Pfaltzgraff patterns simply because a replacement for a broken butter dish is all that will truly satisfy some people. Although Christmas is more fun with little kids in the family, aunts & uncles just can't compete with grandparents, especially when divorces & remarriages have doubled the numbers & they're competing with each other.

There's fewer elaborate outdoor Christmas decorations in the neighborhhod, perhaps due to a combination of higher utility costs & uncomfortable weather. But I dislike the noisy, inflatable displays that proliferated last year.