Tis the Season: Yuletide Hunting in Robinson Township

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Bing Crosby crooning in the distance, and jingle bells are all sounds that evoke the Christmas holiday. But if you are a resident of Western Pennsylvania, you need to add the sound of a shotgun to that list. BOOM!

Ho, ho, ho … I hear hunters so it must mean that Christmas is around the corner!

For as long as I can remember hunting season joins forces with the holiday season here in Robinson Township. I remember as a kid I would ask my mom why we always had the Monday after Thanksgiving off from school and she would simply answer, “it’s hunting season.”

I’m not a total hunting novice. I’ve done my Warner Brothers research. I knew that hunting season generally involved a spastic duck named Daffy and a clever rabbit named Bugs. Mom quickly educated me to what real hunting season entailed.

Apparently hunting your own meat is something some suburbanites live for. And as you probably know, the deer population can be a little too plentiful around here. Sometimes it’s not safe to drive for you or the deer. I always feel like I’m playing a video game when I drive home at night. Are my reflexes strong enough to dodge a deer and a possum and another deer? Let’s find out!

Yay—I lived. I can make it to the next level or as we call it in real life, Tuesday!

As a non-hunter, I am very pro-hunting. I have no intention of dying in a deer-related auto accident. The local hunters are like my personal soldiers. They are out in the field protecting local drivers (me) from hoofed creatures. I salute them.

I would love to make area hunters Christmas cookies to thank them for getting the pesky Bambi family off my road. I just don’t have the oven space. Plus, I’m lazy, one more reason I’m not a hunter.

The odd part of this whole hunting-season-meets-Christmas season mash-up experience is that I can’t seem to enjoy Christmas songs unless they are accompanied by gun shots.

Should I be saying that in public?

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, the alarm on my iPhone was programmed with a Christmas song. I was awakened to Frank Sinatra’s smooth voice singing “The Christmas Waltz.” My first reaction was, “Ugh. It’s too early to wake up”. My second reaction was, “Ugh. It’s too early for Christmas music”. Then I heard the first gunshot of the season and I sprung out of bed and screamed “let’s do this!”

I’m sure Freud would suggest that the rifle represents my father and the bullet represent my libido. That’s why Freud is the worst. I think it means I've been raised in Western PA, where we are told that Santa and his reindeer are awesome, but those non-reindeer types are dangerous.

On Comet! On Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen!

The rest of you, not so much.