do they know it's christmas

i don't. oh, i know what month it is, but still christmas always seems just right around the corner. even better, a few fm radio stations are now playing straight up christmas songs 24/7. seems a bit early, but i could be wrong about that. i mean, i saw on the news today [oh boy!] 4 days till BLACK FRIDAY. that's when the large hadron collider gets turned on and creates a big black hole to suck this madness out.

well, i can only hope, right. enough with the kvetching. i like christmas. however, i wonder why the second biggest retail holiday, halloween, doesn't have the news counting down for it. where's the love now. but before you think i'm a big grinch with my heart 2 sizes too small, think again. because the holidays are magic, no matter what age and how commercial they become.

so below is an advert for the once mighty toy retailer toys r us that aired back when i was a pup. when anna and i first saw this on the net last year, i think, we were stopped in our tracks. christmas traffics in sentimentality and there's little more sentimental than those things of our childhood. and before you get all postmodern and ironic think about those things from your childhood that you recall. the good things. the things that made the world a wonderful place.

now go get some nog with a dash of rum and a sprinkle of nutmeg, put your feet up, get the old vhs tape of the yuletide fire up and running and dig into this.

god bless us, everyone