The True Meaning Of The Season
Wednesday - December 07, 2011
| Share
Del.icio.usI hope your holiday season is going well so far. Mine’s just started. I’m already so far behind I’m considering leaping ahead to Valentine’s Day.
A reminder of the deep holiday hole I’m in was a news report yesterday that said if we hadn’t done our shopping by now, we missed out on all the good deals.
Another was when I went to the post office to pick up a month’s worth of mail collected while we were away and found two dozen Christmas cards that arrived before Thanksgiving.
My own Christmas card status update?
Still trying to figure out how to Photoshop 22 family members to look like we’d actually all gotten together this year in order to outdo a friend. Each year I get her family photo around Dec. 1 that includes her 40-plus children, spouses and grandchildren all dressed alike.
She’s the same one who pre-buys and wraps all birthday gifts and holiday cards for the whole year.
Instead of freaking out over the yet undone, I’ve decided to laugh my way through the holidays, saving the family from my stress, which they claim is contagious, referring to the to-do list I make for them.
Here are some things that have made me laugh:
My new iPad 2 I got in order to save time and be more organized: Yes, it’s cool. But I’m living a lie. I play no games except solitaire, and the one movie I downloaded expired before I had time to watch it. And, I am less organized by virtue of the time wasted trying to be cool.
My 3 1/2-year-old granddaughter’s response to the game app I bought for her and me to play was, “Mimi, I think it’s a little too complicated for you.”
Being busy with a new grandchild, I missed most of the Wall Street protests. Now that I’ve caught up, I’m trying to figure out what percent I am so I know whether to feel guilty or not. (For sure it’s not the 1 percent, unless we’re talking about in the world, in which case, all Americans are.) What commandment was “thou shalt not covet” again?
Politically speaking, did you realize that the new Republican presidential frontrunners, Mitt and Newt, are a baseball glove and a salamander? Maybe formal names of yesteryear like John, James and Woodrow are kaput, although populist president Theodore Roosevelt was “Teddy,” a now wellknown lingerie item. Woody (Toy Story) Wilson is hard to imagine, as is Herbie (The Love Bug) Hoover.
Black Friday has come and gone in the true spirit of peace and giving as we commemorate the birth of Christ, whose message was to love our fellow man. There were only several dozen tramplings, liberal pepper spraying of fellow shoppers, at least one shooting and two women fistfighting in the electronics department (see why I’m staying away from technology?).
Well done, Walmart shoppers. Imagine if we were celebrating Hitler’s birth?
Let’s face it, I’m old school when it comes to Christmas. Call it a generational curse (or blessing, depending on your outlook or age). It starts in December, not August. I’m possessive. I like my Thanksgiving to stand alone as a holiday like it used to back in the day. Hearing Jingle Bells before Labor Day makes me think age-related memory loss has set in.
Believe me, I know how those holiday sales can literally make or break a retailer’s yearly budget, keep the balance sheet balanced and employees employed. I once was a mall retailer. So, let’s not blame them for trying to stay afloat.
But it’s up to us to put things into perspective and keep the furniture moving to a minimum (my husband asked me to include that) with a large dose of laughter, some eggnog OK, a lot of eggnog and keeping sacred the meaning of the season of peace and joy.
Well, at least try.
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS Comments (0) |
Most Recent Comment(s):
