I returned home from work last evening and as I looked outside my living room windows I saw a most interesting development. Someone, in one of the apartment across from me, had decked out their patio in strings of colourful lights. I don’t want to label them definitively as Christmas lights because there’s a possibility these lights are for Diwali, the festival of lights, which is celebrated in southeast Asia. They do look suspiciously like Christmas lights though and not the traditional lanterns and oil lamps associated with Diwali. A modern take on a long celebrated festival? Perhaps. Diwali lasts five days so we’ll see if they are still up next week.
If these are indeed supposed to be Christmas lights, these will be the earliest set of lights I’ve ever seen; a week earlier than Halloween, a full two months before Christmas itself! Let’s see what happens after next week.
Yes, too soon. Very much so. Here in Australia we have no significant annual events between Fathers day and Christmas so the decorations go up in October. Shopping centres are all currently decked out, and you can expect Santa to be available for knee-sitting sometime in early November (last year I made a mental note that Santa was in my local shopping centre on Remembrance Day (11/11). The imposed consumerism of it all ticks me off greatly. Christmas should not last 1/4 to 1/3 of the year.