Holishax

Growing up in Southern New Jersey, preparing for the holidays was just as exciting as actually celebrating them. Unless your forest was boxed up and in the attic, you would drive to a local tree farm and cut down the pine that would stand in your living room come Christmas. If it was Halloween you were gearing up for, you head to the local farm and catch a hayride out to the pumpkin patch. Need some roses for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day? Go to the florist – rumor has it they have some. Dummy. Had we been ethnocentric about the whole thing, we’d just assume this is how they roll in all other parts of the United States.

Yeah, that would be incorrect. Shocker.

In Northern Virginia, the holidays come to you! It really doesn’t matter which of the above holidays you’re talking about, but celebrating your favorite feast / celebration / excuse-for-dressing-silly couldn’t be easier!

People, we live in a time of convenience. Time is money. (This is proved by the transitive property, of course. Since Time is a magazine, and Money is a magazine, you know the rest.) (Of course this means Time is also Oprah – hmm, it appears mathematics have failed me again.) Anyways, with so little time around the holidays, who has time to get that tree / pumpkin / bouquet / groundhog? Not the people of Northern Virginia, I assure you.

Enter the Parking Lot Holiday Depot.

Something I’ve noticed since coming to this area that in the last week before a holiday, ample parking at commercial strip malls disappear in the name of last-minute commerce. Stand-alone holiday shacks, or holishax, appear out of thin air to provide those with little time to decorate.

Christmas trees right next to my bank? Yep!
Pumpkins out in front of Starbucks? Sure!
A dozen roses for $3? What a deal!
Fireworks at Buy 1 Get One prices? Wait a minute.

Sure, the overall idea of holishax kind of ruins some of the holiday spirit for me, and I’m guessing, others who grew up with direct access to the source. Every Christmas we love to sit around the fire and talk about how we used to go get the tree from the tree farm, and point out how someone dropped the cell phone in the snow. Luckily, we were able to return to the scene to find it slightly frozen. You know what happens when you drop a cell phone in a parking lot?

Motoroad kill.

And while we’re at it, let’s go back to the fireworks example? Something just doesn’t sit right about many, many flammable mini-missiles just a few feet away from a buzzing highway full of vehicles that burn fuel for a living. A gas leak and a spark just seems too possible. Or at least more possible than the World Cup Golden Ball winner coming unglued in the waning moments of the final.

I assume that the existence of holishax must generate enough of a return for them to keep returning to my area parking lots every year. But just wait until Wal-mart unveils a Super Holishax that stays open year-round and sells all holiday swag at once.

Parking will be first come, first serve.