HICKS: 'Tis the season after all

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By Marybeth Hicks

"Hey, Mom. Check out the tacky Christmas house," my daughter says as we drive home from the grocery store. "They've already started putting out all their junky decorations, and it isn't even Thanksgiving yet."

Ah, yes. The humbling moment when you realize you are raising a holiday snob.

Clearly, I've spent too much time through the years driving around town bashing the early onset of lights and lawn ornaments that pop up in mid-November.

In my effort to observe Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday because there are no gifts, no lights and no incessant Thanksgiving songs - I've conveyed to my children that there is moral high ground on which to stand, holiday decor-wise.

So Amy's snarky comment doesn't surprise me as we drive past the house whose owner has collected what seems to be every light-up plastic creche, every life-sized Santa-and-his-reindeer display and every inflatable snowman ever sold at Wal-Mart.

Worse, there appears to be no logical placement for all this stuff. It's scattered across an expansive side yard in an arrangement recalling an obstacle course for elves or perhaps an all-Christmas yard sale.

Extension cords crisscross the lawn like snakes. Everything lights up, causing one to speculate on the energy dependence America suffers from this holiday display alone. And it doesn't just light up through December. It stays lit past Valentine's Day.

Typically, I would respond to Amy's remark with an equally condescending, if not socially correct, reply, such as, "Well, some people just can't wait to pull their giant aluminum snowflakes out of storage and set them up on the roof with plywood sawhorses and bright orange extension cords. Who are we to judge?"

Tempted though I am to pile on my holiday snobbery, I don't do it.

Instead, I tell Amy about the ad campaign taking place for the American Humanist Association - in which Metro buses sport placards depicting a cool dude in a Santa suit saying, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake."