Circus the Grinch on the Christmas Season

This entry was originally posted on 29 November 2004 at 12:31 p.m.

Circus the Grinch here for yet another annual round of holiday glee. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this year's exploration of "the Christmas Season." On today's show, we talk about the season and its native fauna. First in a short series.

'Round about October 31, retailers all across our fair land suddenly switch gears from the summer season to the Christmas Season. It's an awe-inspiring transformation, much like watching a caterpillar transform into a butterfly at ultra-high speed: enter any regional stuff mart and you'll notice that, seemingly overnight, the merchandise on the floor has gone from patio furniture to festive colored lights wrapped around tinsel-draped plastic evergreens. Truly, a more magnificent display of winter plumage is nowhere else to be seen in the animal kingdom.

(Nevermind the fact that if there is such thing as the Christmas Season, it technically runs only from Advent through Epiphany. This, clearly, is a long-lost ancient tradition that has somehow lost all relevance to society. Read up on it here.)

Unlike many other natural metamorphoses, this one is accompanied by the emergence of something called "holiday music," which can be identified by its delightful blend of crooning vocals and the liberal use of sleigh bells. Ah, what a season! Many human ecologists believe that it is this winter song in combination with the sudden release of new and special merchandise that brings innumerable shoppers out of their summer hibernation, hungry and surly after months of eyeing the same old crap on the shelves.

The hungriest of the shoppers circle one another like tigers, sizing up each enemy before striking with lightning speed in a mad dash to buy the very last Action Figure of the Year. Many of them bring their offspring, loaded up with sugar to the point of screaming and wailing--a clever ruse to ward off other shoppers who might be muscling in on their territory. It is a wondrous sight to behold two shoppers locked in mortal combat, only to flee the scene when a third armed with an angry child arrives. Brilliant!

But the most frightening of all winter season shoppers are the Christmas Angels, who maintain a perfect plastic smile. They can often be seen wearing red and green, and, usually when working in their nests, Santa hats. Watch out, fellow nature-lovers! These shoppers are armed with the deadliest of holiday weapons: unflagging generosity, coupled with a genuine aura of goodwill and cheerfulness. Make no mistake; this observer has seen many a rabid shopper holding the very last of a hot item back down in a sudden fit of anxious guilt at the approach of an Angel.

And there you have it, fellow nature-lovers: the native species of the Christmas Season. Be careful around them all and remember that they are in fact wild animals, no matter how sweet and docile they seem.