CHRISTMAS

Celebrate Christmas in whatever way you wish.  There are those who will attend church services for the sociability and those to feel closer to God.  However, in the United States everyone gets the day off except those in emergency services...and that is not a small number.  Even though our Senate thinks they shouldn't have to work on Christmas, it is not a choice for many who are happy to have any job at all.

Meanwhile, whether you are a Christian, Mormon, Muslim, or 'Heathen', take the day off and enjoy the lights,  frenetic shopping and gift giving ritual which will result in long lines of people returning gifts a few days after Christmas.  Many will be busy tallying how the Holiday effected the economy while others will have had to endure time with relatives they are happy not to see more often that the yearly compulsory visit.  Merchants will restock their shelves for the next Holiday.  I have already seen one store with their Valentine's merchandise on prominent display.

US First Lady Michelle Obama has surprised children by answering their calls to a system that tracks Santa's global gift-delivering progress.  At this writing, he has made it over more than half the globe.  Most people will say, "Christmas is for children" and that is what it has come to be, a stressful time for adults, lying to children, buying what cannot be afforded or paid for until months have elapsed. .Trash collectors will abhor the next week's pick up which will be more than double the usual work, environmentalists will grieve the trees that were cut down and thrown out on the lawn for the town truck to gather.

In all, most of us will breathe a sigh of relief that it is over until next year though not all of us will feel it was an unpleasant time...like having a baby.  After the birth most mothers are convinced they want no more children until their little one in no longer an infant and they begin to get a longing for.another for 'family balance'.  Decorations will go back into storage and whatever was enjoyed will remain a happy memory.

'TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY

Others seem to go through this season being jolly. I really have to work to keep from snapping at them and fantasizing ways to do in everyone who asks if I've finished my shopping (which I have scarcely started at this point). Each Christmas season is like having a baby...you forget the pain or you'd never have another. At the beginning of the month I looked at all the empty spaces in my schedule and filled those hours up with three times what might have fit into them. There is no time for any of those things because I hadn't included everything that has to be done for Christmas.

In a house that is already stuffed everywhere, the only place to put a tree is in a space I have to create. A stack of heavy music books four feet high, the three foot long stack of books that had been on this chest, the 130 DVDs that I had no better place for after I converted them from VHS tapes...all this has to be carried upstairs for the duration. Carried up will be the chest on and in which they were contained. You must visual that finding the place to keep them for three weeks upstairs is like solving those puzzles that have a pile of geometrically shaped pieces that are supposed to fit in a little frame but when taken apart they seem to expand to double the surface area.

All knick-knacks, clocks, plants, vases, and whatevers on other surfaces also have to find new homes for a few weeks. Since teleportation is only in Sci-Fi, these moves can only be manually effected. In the afternoons the window candles must be turned on; before bed, turned off. (I finally decided that the one candle upstairs can be on all night since it is light activated). All the plants have to find new homes for a few weeks from their sunny home in the front window to make way for Santas, a Rosemany Tree and all sort of other reminders of Christmas.

Someone, please, explain this madness to me. What makes us continue this ritualized, masochistic effort at the coldest, darkest time of year. We crowd in greeting cards, letters, gift shopping, wrapping and all the stuff that people complain about yet, silently, through gritted jaws we plod like automatons doing the same things year after year...finally getting things finally put away somewhere between the middle of January and the next Christmas.

What a way to greet the New Year!

CHRISTMAS IS UPON US

Years ago, a friend introduced me to the concept of a 'Christmas Wish List' on a Bulletin Board in her home. This seemed a great idea until I tried it. If it was a child's list, that was great because you usually coordinated with the parents. Otherwise, you didn't know who else might have bought the same item. Adults never wrote anything on it. Before my grandchildren all grew up, I had a list made out with a name and space for each child, so they could write what they wanted when they were here, usually at Thanksgiving time. It became an aggravation because they wrote ridiculous requests that took up their whole space, filled the spaces of other children, and the list was made totally useless for the intended purpose. Now they are grown and scattered throughout two continents. I no longer see them all at Thanksgiving, or Christmas.

It is a challenge to figure out how to change a tradition that no longer works. There are several challenges here. In my 'golden' years I need very little and find myself trying to unload more than I accumulate. I long ago realized that no one wants my left-over stuff, kitchen utensils, appliances that still work but no longer perform the latest functions, out of style clothing, books that are dated, and sheet music from the last 70 years. If I can't think of what I might want, how can I expect anyone else to guess? If I give a suggestion such as a plant, I end up with a jungle; if I say something funny, I end up with a library of hilarious stuff I have little time to read. Writing checks, while perhaps useful to the giver, hardly seems festive. I have given gift certificates and gotten gift certificates, sometimes to places I might not have chosen but to which I was happily introduced. When I ask anyone else what they want, I most often get, "I don't know."

There is no respite as the time grows shorter to the now dreaded Holiday. I detest wrapping and mailing things, though I used to love to make pretty displays of wrapped presents under the tree. Wrapping and mailing gets to be a greater cost than the gift therein. I feel it takes precious time out of whatever life is left. The stores are mobbed and the whole shopping exercise is torture. Shopping online has become a far better experience, though one has the sense of Russian Roulette as reports of card information being compromised reaches the media.

In short, I'd like a suggestion as to how the pleasure of giving and receiving at Christmas could be brought back other than in my dreams and childhood reminiscences. I say boycott the merchants and only buy what you see that you want to give throughout the year to whomever it might give pleasure. If it 'tis the season to be jolly, where did I go wrong?