Sorry I am just now writing about this, but as most of you know, my parents came to visit last weekend. It was weird for us and I know it was weird for them. I can only imagine how it would feel the first time you go visit your grown children. When we were walking up to the front doors of the church building on Sunday, Mom said, “This is weird, visiting our daughter’s church.” But we had fun. We went to the OSU game on Saturday and watched them beat Purdue in overtime. We went back to Lynd’s with them because my mom wanted to go. She is like me and loves all the fun fall things like picking apples and such.

Last week we had a Halloween party with the Buckeyes for Christ. That was fun. We played lots of fun games and watched the Adams Family.

Today is Halloween but it doesn’t seem like it. We aren’t supposed to have kids come to our door because we live in an apartment. We don’t really have any plans for tonight related to Halloween. Pearson and I watched Hocus Pocus at some point last week and I have recorded a bunch of other Halloween movies so maybe we will watch one. It is kind of sad that we have been celebrating Halloween all month but on the actual day, we have no plans.

BTW, this is me. I dressed as Minnie Mouse for Halloween at 3 years old.

This brings me to another point: Even though Halloween seems over before it is, that is no excuse to start celebrating Christmas in October!! Seriously, many stores and shops already have Christmas decorations up, have big sales going on and I have seen some “Holiday” shopping commercials on TV. I just walked by a huge display of “Holiday (Just because they can’t say Christmas) Movies” today. This really grinds my gears! The only reason the “Christmas” season keeps growing and now covers 3 months is because we have gotten so materialistic. It is the companies that are starting the Christmas shopping season early. It is ridiculous. The point of Christmas is truly to remember the birth of Jesus and what God gave to the world when he gave us His Son and to return that spirit of giving to other people. It is NOT the spirit of spending a lot of money and buying the biggest and best presents to impress our loved ones. It is NOT the spirit of getting the best deals and fighting with whoever happens to be in between us and that number one gadget that is marked down half price for 3 hours only on Black Friday morning! (This is why I don’t shop on Black Friday- My grandma had a sweater literally ripped out of her hands many years ago and ever since I have thought those people are crazy). But at least Black Friday is AFTER Thanksgiving! That is the worst part. I would like to ask the companies with Christmas decorations up already, “Hey, don’t you know there is another holiday between now and Christmas? Do you know what it is called? Do you know why we celebrate it?”

Thanksgiving. A day set aside to give thanks. This holiday supposedly started as a harvest celebration when pilgrims came over to the Americas and they were thankful for this New World and for a good harvest. The holiday evolved quite a bit since then and in 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide Thanksgiving celebration in America “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving). Don’t you want to be thankful and acknowledge the plentiful favors of our Almighty God on a day set aside for just that? Sure we should do that every day, but this is a day recognized by our country to do that. We should take advantage of it and make it a big deal. You could very well argue that this is the most important holiday of the year. We have nothing without God. We are nothing without God and his blessings. The least we can do is be thankful, and frankly, many of us have trouble being thankful on a daily basis. So a holiday designed to make us stop and be thankful is needed. BUT, these days we practically skip right over it! Enough! Let’s celebrate Thanksgiving and save Christmas for December!

Okay enough of my ranting. I really didn’t mean to write that much about the matter but if you hadn’t noticed, it bothers me a little. Now after today, I will change my decorations to reflect Thanksgiving. I can’t love being festive for every holiday.

Thanks for reading.