On the Twelfth Day...

I hope you still have those Christmas decorations up, because today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, also known as The Three Kings Day and the Feast of the Epiphany.

I have never been a fan of the "Twelve days of Christmas" song (it reminds me too much of that staple of school bus trips "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"), but it does serve to remind us that Christmas isn't over on December 25th.

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The Christmas tree pictured above is the 2005 Hillsborough Municipal Building tree. It has recently been suggested that one of Hillsborough's holiday traditions is having a large section of this tree ending up blacked-out during the season, but it looks pretty good here except for a bare spot or two.

The Santa Question

This Christmas I had to contend with the Santa question. You know the one.

It was brought up not by the fifth grade believer in question, but by her slightly older friend (sixth grade) who advised me that eleven was way too old to be a believer and other kids were going to make fun of any kid that old who still believed.

The first thing to determine was the reason the sixth grader felt the need to disabuse the fifth grader of her belief in Santa Claus. She insisted that she was just doing it to help her friend. I am too cynical to believe that her entire reason was altruistic, but I was unable to establish any truly malicious reason for her attempts to knock Santa off the fifth grader’s pedestal.

Next was checking with the believer to figure out if this was just a plot to rake in extra Santa gifts [my cynicism again] or true belief. She was not to be moved from her conviction that Santa was a real person who mysteriously did everything that Santa is supposed to do at Christmas.

The fifth grader’s older sibling (ninth grade) was no help, advising me that she herself had actually stopped believing in third grade but kept saying she believed just to make her parents feel better. She was also inclined to feel it did no harm to let her younger sister continue believing.

After some thought I realized that there is something to be said for Santa Claus being magically real, a mysterious being who causes thousands of people – even some adults - to behave better than they might even if only for a few weeks.

So, what is the harm in keeping Santa real for another year? Having some fifth graders make fun of me?

Tough. I’m hanging with Santa another year.

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Think about it. Can you prove he doesn't exist? Yeah, neither could I.

'Tis [still] the season

It has become de rigueur to complain about how the Christmas holidays are starting earlier and earlier. Well, I have decided to reverse that custom and whine about how the holidays are ending earlier and earlier.

It wasn’t that many years ago that every neighborhood had a house whose lights were still on for Valentine’s Day and there was always the family who didn’t bother to take down their lights at all; they just turned them on around Thanksgiving and stopped lighting them mid-January.

This year, the day after Christmas, I woke up bright and early still basking in the glow of a satisfying Christmas day, and couldn’t find any carols playing on the radio. Bummer.

Then, while having my first cup of coffee and admiring our Christmas trees, fireplace decorations, and gifts, I looked out the window and noticed the neighbors across the street taking down their lights.

Finally, the last few nights I noticed how dark and depressing the neighborhoods are without all the decorations and I decided to fight this early ending of the holiday season.

Let’s remember that there are Americans who won’t be celebrating Christmas until January 6th, which is the Feast of the Epiphany. And what about the twelve days of Christmas? Can’t we wait for the Wise Men to arrive?

There is something magical about watching a snowfall through Christmas lights, but in this area that doesn’t usually happen any more until January or February so there is even more to be said for leaving the lights turned on.

Life can be boring enough in mid-winter without us humans making it worse.

Anyway, if in mid-January you are finally taking the decorations off the Christmas tree and you fall off the ladder and need to call the rescue squad, well, you can just turn on the outside Christmas lights to make it easier for them to find the house.

See, I told you it was a good idea to leave them up!

New Year's Irresolution

Blog posting on New Year’s Day can be daunting with readers expecting deep thoughts, resolutions, inspiration, and wisdom. Sorry, I can’t come up with anything close to inspiring or wise and no profound insights have occurred.

I would like to resolve to have life slow down a little, but so much of life depends on other people that you really don’t have the option to slam on the brakes without expecting that there may be someone behind you who will rear-end your little caboose.

Even in your own castle your resolutions can depend on the other occupants. I thought about resolving to eat all the food that has accumulated in the pantry and in the cupboards before buying more. First thing, my significant other has to agree to help cook and eat the strange meals that will result. Secondly, it will hurt to pass up all those stock-up food sales; we just got the flyer for January’s Can-Can Sale.

We both thought about cutting back on our work hours – maybe giving up one of our part-time jobs or not accepting new clients. Well, at least we are thinking about it. We are supposed to be easing into retirement, but we don’t seem to have a handle on that. The last time I told an acquaintance that I was taking on a new client, her comment was “Oh, and what are you giving up? Sleeping?”

We considered the usual promises to lose weight or eat more healthy food or exercise more…but we have tried those unsuccessfully before.

Maybe the problem is that I have never really celebrated New Year’s Day. After decades starting school every September it seems as though that should be the time for new beginnings - not the middle of winter.

Okay, try me in September; maybe I’ll have a resolution by then.

The Mall Tree

The view can be relative. The long view:



the medium view:



and the close-up view:



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"The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Celling Your Soul?

I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t want a cell phone.

Okay, I just wanted to get that out in the open and out of the way first thing. We did have one for two years - biggest waste of money I can ever recall! I never turned it on and I can’t remember ever having used it to make a telephone call.

I did receive calls from it when my spouse was carrying it, typically at inconvenient times and consisting mostly of “guess what I just bought at a garage sale” or “I’m on my way home” – usually when they were within ten minutes of arriving at the house.

Recently I saw two comments regarding the necessity of cell phones: “cell phones are a fact of life in this on-demand life” and “the world demands immediacy.” Notice that the word demand is in both of those statements as in “insists, orders, commands, or requires.” Well, I guess that I have just gotten too far in life to let others have that kind of power over me, to demand that I be available twenty-four hours a day whenever they decide.

And no one even bothers with the “you might need it in an emergency” pretext anymore. They are just annoyed when they can’t reach you whenever they want. In fact, they are downright insulted when you explain that you have your cell phone turned off because you wanted it turned off.

Or, occasionally, they are shocked that you have really decided to intentionally turn it off! What a concept!

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While we are on the topic, what is with those strange ear-clippy phone things that always remind me of Star Trek costumes? Anyone who remembers clip-on earrings has got to figure that those things must hurt by the end of the day. Do you remember your mother getting home and pulling off her earrings the minute she walked through the door?

Additionally, the ear-phone wearers are insulting those with whom they are doing business in the real world; real people who are apparently not important enough to merit their undivided attention. If that is the case, then they don’ t need my business.

The Alternate Office Gift Exchange

One autumn I started a new job at just about the time that the office manager was beginning the thankless task of planning the office holiday party.

When she came to me about the office gift exchange I said “No, thanks.” Big mistake. She hounded me and hounded me about participating.

Meanwhile, co-workers were privately cheering me on, telling me about what a pain it was to go buy something for someone they didn’t know and it stretched their holiday budget, and they never got a present they wanted.

Finally, in desperation, I had to come up with an alternate suggestion and believe it or not I did.

Instead of an office gift exchange we would find an orphanage or foster care center or children’s social welfare program and get a list of kids by sex, age, and interests and buy them presents. Each employee would bring an unwrapped toy to the office holiday party and at the party we would wrap the toys and a few days later a staff member would deliver the presents.

Wow! The idea was a hit and we all had so much fun! The company even pitched in some funds for some extras.

There was a mild competition for the delivery run, but rank has its privilege; the office manager and another senior staff member delivered the presents

That is the first time I had enjoyed shopping for an office gift exchange and had a really good time at an office holiday party and every employee overspent the suggested budget and we all had fun.

And if you know some office that can use this suggestion, please pass it along.

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"I hear that in many places something has happened to Christmas; that it is changing from a time of merriment and carefree gaiety to a holiday which is filled with tedium; that many people dread the day and the obligation to give Christmas presents is a nightmare to weary, bored souls..." - Julia Peterkin (1880-1961), American Author.