The Monday After Thanksgiving, This Year, Still ...

The Monday after Thanksgiving, this year, still very much in November, I met a group of preachers, as is my habit most Mondays for lunch. I was the first to arrive and while I was waiting, I noticed the music playing on the sound system. Song after song of Christmas music was coming out. If only we could say that it was simply a few days of extra Christmas music because Thanksgiving fell so early. Truly, that is not the case. I try very hard to pay attention to things around me. I never know when something that I might see would make a good sermon illustration at some point in the future. One of the things that I noticed this year was, I saw my first Christmas push in mid-August when Hobby Lobby was making room for Christmas decorations, and I am not talking about decorations that people would buy parts of to make. I am talking about decorations to put on your tree. That was in mid-August, four and a half months before Christmas.

Santa Claus was actually in many malls two full weeks before Thanksgiving this year. Perhaps that has happened before, but I can’t remember when.