The end is near - if not already here

When I was little, Christmas couldn’t come soon enough. Now, increasingly, it comes all too soon.

Yes, time does go by faster as I get older. There is also the fact that Christmas comes earlier and earlier each year. I used to complain about seeing Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Now I spot them before Halloween. In fact, it feels more and more like, once November 1 comes, Christmas and the year-end holiday madness, with an endless list of things to do and get done, is more or less here.

Perhaps more significantly, I love Fall, and I never get enough of it. Autumn is my favorite season, with its cooling temperatures and its glorious, bright colors in the face of death and the growing dark, but, unlike the long, hot summer, it always zips by, and, before I know it, Christmas is here, and another year is over. What’s more, here in Southern California, the summer heat lingers - it wasn’t until this past weekend (when, appropriately enough, a friend arrived for a visit from Vermont) that it got really chilly, at least at night - so I feel I am short-changed, getting even less of the fall.

It could be that I’m just not getting enough of a favorite thing. As I feel like I’m hurtling towards the end of the year, I suspect there’s something more to it. I like the image I was recently given - that of the year being like a roll of toilet paper which unravels more and more quickly.