I have been told that I am a linear thinker and that seems to be accurate to me. I like my stories to have a beginning, middle and end and to follow a chronological order. I am aware, of course, that there are many ways to tell a story and that the way a story is told is heavily influenced by cultural perspectives. When I tell a story, I often follow a story arc or plot form that has its roots in Greek philosophy, if not even deeper in the history of people. Aristotle, in Poetics, considered the story line to be very important, beginning with an introduction and following a set of ups and downs leading to a climax followed by a decrease in action leading to a climax. Many of the stories I tell follow that model fairly closely.

Given my heritage, it makes sense that my thought is influenced by Greek thought, as is the case with most of Europe and the people whose ancestors came from Europe. There are other ways to tell stories. In parts of the East, character development is more important that plot and telling the story of an individual character might lead to getting ahead of the story before the next character is introduced. Tribal stories from both Africa and the Americas often are circular in nature with key points or truths appearing in multiple generations and therefore the stories return again and again to their most important events and lessons.

The Bible contains many different ways of telling stories. The Genesis creation narratives, for example, have a very linear approach: “In the beginning . . .” In Ecclesiastes, the author has a circular view of history:

A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun goes down,
    and hurries to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south,
    and goes around to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
    there they continue to flow.

All things[c] are wearisome;
    more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    or the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

Luke tells the story of Jesus’ birth. Mark dives right in with his ministry. John begins with a highly theoretical and theological poem with images of light and darkness and truth.

There are many different ways to tell a story.

But, as I began this blog, I am a linear thinker. I like to start at a beginning point and follow a chronological order.

Having said that, and having acknowledged that not everyone sees the world as I do, I found it to be a bit confusing and disorienting to drive around town yesterday. Of course the snow and sudden cold made travel a bit more precarious than has been the case through most of the fall. It was only our second really icy day, as the accident investigators were well aware. And it was cold, so people were bundled up and we were running the heaters in our cars and our windows were shut tightly. Looking out as I drove through town I had to peer through clouds of exhaust and steam from cars. It always takes me a few days to adjust to a new season.

But that isn’t what was disorienting.

I expected to see a lot of flags out. It was, after all, Veteran’s Day, also known as Armistice Day. It was a good day for remembering and for displaying flags. However, throughout the downtown area, the flags were mounted two to a pole, in a sort of a v-shape, with a Christmas wreath on the pole between the two flags. The Christmas banners and decorations are strung across Main Street and although I didn’t go downtown for the Veteran’s Day parade, I’m sure the parade floats all made their way underneath the Christmas decorations. It has been puzzling me since I noticed city crews putting up Christmas decorations in the first week of November.

In my linear world, holidays come in a particular order and follow the same order each year. For years, when I was a kid, school started in September. Halloween came at the end of October. Veteran’s Day was in the beginning of November and Thanksgiving was a the end of November. December’s big holiday, Christmas, came near the end of the month, followed closely by New Year’s Day and then a bit of a break before Valentine’s Day which came before Easter which came before Memorial Day. Then school got out and the 4th of July was our big summer holiday.

In the world of marketing, however, Christmas shopping had to get mixed up with Thanksgiving. I knew about this decades ago. When we lived in Chicago in the 1970’s the big push was for the shops to change their decorations on Thanksgiving Day, so that the day before they looked like Thanksgiving and the Friday after Thanksgiving all of the Christmas Decorations were up. Of course, in those days, the stores were closed on Thanksgiving Day and crews worked behind the scenes to change all of the window displays and other decorations. At least once, when we lived in Chicago, we braved the crowds to look at the window displays at Marshall Field’s Department Store on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I know. The world changes. Marshall Field’s is now a Macy’s.

And Rapid City puts up its city Christmas Decorations before Thanksgiving.

The holiday jumble probably isn’t so disorienting for someone who isn’t quite so bound up in linear thinking as I am. I just want the holidays to proceed in a set order.

I actually like Advent Carols and like to heighten the anticipation of Christmas by waiting a bit before getting too carried away. We often don’t have our Christmas Tree until the second week of Advent and we always leave it up until Epiphany unless we are planning to travel after Christmas.

I’m pretty sure that we’ll be so tired of the city Christmas decorations by the time Christmas comes, we won’t leave them up for the entire season. What do you want to bet that they are down before New Years?

Maybe the city planners aren’t as linear in their thinking as I am.

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