Nurse the Hate: Christmas in Autumn

She got a jump on holiday decorating and opened up box after musty box of Santas, angels, and snowmen.  Various colors and styles combined in a stylistic mishmash that made the home look like a bad Christmas LSD trip.  Dozens of scented candles battled with each other and left a noticeable residue in the mouth and nose of all those that dared to enter the modest dwelling.  Decorations fought with each other to be noticed.  It was like a discount store decoration museum with a TV always on, always ignored.  A string of lights buzzed outside, hastily nailed to the gutters.  The effect was less festive than to make the house look like a bar and grill from faded pictures he had seen from the early 1960s.  Smiling men in galoshes holding longneck beers from long defunct brands.  An uneasy smile.  Nowhere to go to avoid bumping into a smiling reindeer.  He felt warm and uncomfortable.  He imagined shoddy poorly wrapped gifts exchanged, forgotten moments after being given.  Uneaten food sitting in plastic snowman shaped serving dishes.  A cigarette burning unattended.  Empty stockings nailed up to the fake hearth.  Drinking.  Arguing.  Madness.  The dried out Christmas tree eventually dragged to the curb in February leaving a trail of needles like a bleeding corpse.  There was no avoiding it.  The holidays were coming.  But not yet for him.  He walked out of the house and felt the tension ease from his neck.  He looked back at the house.  He could still smell the candles on his clothes.