Tis the season.

The snow is as high as an elephant's eye. Well, maybe. I've never really seen how high and elephant's eye is, so the hyperbole will have to do. Actually, it's about two feet, which is barely higher than my cat's eye.

As times of the year go, I hate this one. The days are short, and in order to get anywhere, one needs to add 25% to whatever time frame one thought would suffice. That's because hoards of shoppers are clogging the roads fetching their nearly last-minute gift items from the local shopping malls. Our fragile infrastructure wasn't made for this nonsense.

Tonight, for instance. The little town of Deptford was chock full of Urban Assault Vehicles (generally with one person inside) making a bee-line for the mall. My usual 40-minute ride home took more like an hour, partly because of the traffic and partly because I forgot what day it was. The snow-induced lost weekend manifested itself in a big rush to the stores on Monday night, lest little Timmy or his siblings be left without the latest Wii game or some piece of crap that will be tossed aside 3 days before the warranty runs out.

Have I mentioned how much I hate this time of year?

My theory on all this is that it's the one time of year when everybody - regardless of skill - has to be out in public. That means men wandering aimlessly in the mall, driving around not knowing where they're going and kids who would be better suited in front of the TV or surfing Internet porn, but are instead out causing trouble with their car or their lack of focus, making life difficult for those of us either trying to get home or out buying a roll of toilet paper.

This year, for the first time ever, I have not set foot in a shopping center, mall or other form of retail commerce since Thanksgiving. It's been personally satisfying, if not stress-relieving.

Life gets back to nearly normal on December 26, and I for one, can't wait. Now, all we have to do is get rid of this damned snow.