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December 28 'Tis The Season..... Part 4 - The Sound Of WindThe Christmas season has come to mean the period when the public plays Santa Claus to the merchants.
~John Andrew Holmes
Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All
else is outward display--so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn't
the holly, it isn't the snow. It isn't the tree nor the firelight's glow.
It's the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the
Christmas spirit returns again.
~Anonymous
Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.
~Kin Hubbard
There were only two things that I wanted for Christmas this year; they also happen to be the two things that I want every year. One of them I never get, the other is never denied me.
The one I will only ever dream about is to be able to sleep through the 25th. Doesn’t sound like much, but the problem for my family is that I would start my blessed snooze the day after Thanksgiving. And unlike the youngster who asks for the world to be waiting under the tree on Christmas morning, I was ok with knowing I wouldn’t get the full blown list; Christmas day would suite me just fine.
I could beg, cry, scream, do the puppy dog eyed look thing, but it is never to any avail; the proprieties must be observed. My wife in her usual tender and sensitive way tells me to ‘Suck it up and stop whining’. And so with ‘It’ sucked up and whining brought to a close (a promise to self of a nice healthy belt of scotch later and why not!) we, like the three wise men who two millennium before, follow that brightly lit star to the stables of our families bearing gifts. And yes; as it turns out, I have a good time after all. Getting with the family (both my wife’s and my own) is always a happy time; it is all the hubbub getting to this point in the journey that makes it seem so excruciating.
As I get older (and my wife gets younger) I also see that the painful days of H U G E gifts for my kids (that need to be transported in several trips or if the lord above has graced you, with a mini van) has been reduced down to late teenage level items appropriately transported in a couple of festive holiday bags. The torch has been passed and now my brother Version 2.0 and my brother in law Version 3.1, must trudge the booty back to their far off base camps.
As morning turns to afternoon and then to evening, the gifts are passed, the food and desserts consumed and the conversation of recent events and remembrances wrap up into what I come to realize is really the best gift that I could want; A time with family. For all the whining, bitching, agonizing, complaining and general malcontent that I weave about Christmas; when I sit at home in front of the lit tree in the quiet of the late evening (with promised scotch in hand), I re-discover that while there may have been no joy in the journey, the destination was as worth it all.
And then there is the gift I always get; December the 26th. Oh blessed day.
It is finally over. No more battling the roadways with frenzied shoppers whose kind of holiday cheer can be found in a terrorists handbook and most of all, no more twenty four hours a day on two thousand channels beamed into the core of my brain Christmas music. I mean come on, really, how many times and through how many different renditions can you listen to the same damned Christmas songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
No by God, it is over. The day after Christmas always seems to have a breeze to it that comes from out of nowhere to sweep clean the earth. It is the only sound that I can hear all day and it is as a symphony to my damaged ears. Oh yes, the merchants try to keep the momentum going with after Christmas sales and the New Years celebration one week later, but these are last gasps and they are hushed by the sound of wind.
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