As I sit here in Lit Coffee on Bayview, while writing this piece, we are nearing the third week of March, and the world seems to be in talks with Marvel Studios to be a plot line within one of its multiverse movies. Digesting the news and navigating the changing political landscape are like drinking from a failed dam on a newly named Lake America Great Again (LAGA!). It can’t help making one think of the truly important things in life. Like Christmas lights. In March. Still twinkling.
Just the evening before, I took Jerry the Wonder Dog for his nightly walkies in the futile attempt at draining some of his neurotic energy. Within two blocks, I was sinking into a mild depression. It had nothing to do with tariffs, or that other “T” word. You know, the one that rhymes with Dump. Or Grump. Instead, it was because I counted no fewer than four brightly lit snowmen of varying sizes, more than a couple of reindeer and at least three Santas. And lights. Everywhere. And not just the odd string of white lights that could be passed off as “ambience.” These are full, technicolour, winter holiday wonderlands, still flickering away as if Santa’s ETA were next week. Coming soon to a chimney near you!
Consider these facts: the days are getting longer, the snow is melting, birds are returning from their non-U.S. migrations, and yet, here we are – still clinging for dear life to December (or even November for those post-Halloween outdoor decorators). Or is it the cold temperatures that keep us from taking the lights down? Or the state of the grey world that makes us want to maintain some colour?
Regardless of the reason, it’s this time of year when I’m done. Done with sad piles of dirty snow. Done trying to penguin-walk across stretches of frozen, lumpy slush on Leaside sidewalks, thanks to the freeze-thaw cycle that makes up a typical Toronto winter. I yearn for bad TV commercials about barbecues and patio furniture. Give me a billboard about a lawn fertilizer that will convince me I have a green thumb and make me a neighbourhood hero. Just anything that doesn’t keep reminding me there are only 289 days until Christmas, as of the time of this writing.
It’s 8 degrees as I write this. That’s PLUS 8 degrees. Frosty should be laid to rest by now, or at the very least melted out of existence. Whether it’s a tariff-laden, made-in-China version that ought to be sleeping in its Rubbermaid coffin in the garage, or one made of micro-plastic-riddled snow and carrot sticks ready for Easter bunny eating reduced to a puddle, the way nature intended, it’s time.
Heading back from Lit, as I round the corner off Sutherland and head to my house, I am reminded of my own Exhibit A of procrastination: a tangled, burnt-out mess of “fairy lights” haphazardly piled on top of my hedge, thanks, no doubt, to the driver of the oversized new sidewalk snow plow that treats our fence posts, sprinkler heads and curbstones like they were bowling pins. Judging by the fact that half my hedge is missing its adornment, I figure the plow must have caught an errant light and won its tug-of-war with my shrubs. I think to myself I need to follow my own ranting advice and get to work removing the evidence of Christmas past. Just then my phone buzzes to notify me of the latest Apple News article. Hmmm, Doug Ford is threatening to cut power to Michigan, Minnesota, and New York.
Well, I think, that’s one way to turn off the Christmas lights. Right on, Doug!
This article was guest contributed by David Crichton.
