There’s always a moment in December when I see something that makes me think of a New Yorker cartoon from around the mid-twentieth century. A woman sitting at a writing desk looks at her husband and asks “Do you realize another Christmas is practically at our throats?”

This week it was my night-time walk through Huntington Park, which is now brightened up with lights — all white this year — outlining the trees and bushes and curved in an elegant arch over the entrance. Clever and restrained. After dark it gives the effect of a snowy landscape.

Yesterday afternoon was Santacon. Clots of 20 and 30-somethings wearing everything from Santa Hats to Santa Suits, (and a few elves) moved up and down Polk Street in the dirty afternoon light. The young men who costumed wore the usual red jacket and trousers trimmed with white cotton, while the young women supplemented their hats with mini-skirts and boots. I saw lots of red sequins, tight tops and bare arms. Saturday was brisk, but no judgements here. I can remember being that age and shivering on Halloween night as I walked across campus in my devil costume.

This is a young person’s celebration, and every year I hear older San Franciscans grousing about it, many of whom, I suspect, would have loved it if it had been happening two or three decades ago. I wonder how enduring it’s going to be as a Christmas tradition. Will we see tipsy groups of middle-aged to elderly people in Santa hats wandering downtown San Francisco twenty/thirty/forty years from now? Will a Hallmark Christmas movie depict a gorgeous divorcee from the Financial District finding love and a meaningful life in Walnut Creek with an adorably scruffy misfit dresssed in an ugly sweater at Santacon? Will a new generation take over as the world closes in on the current crop?

Or will it die out completely?

As the cartoon put it, another Christmas is practically at our throats. Which cheers me because I like Christmas. Commercialized? Hell yes. That’s the nature of any festival that involves partying, feasting and gift-giving. I am firmly on the side of Charles Dickens here, however clumsily, however tackily it’s celebrated.

“I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”