(8 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
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Rummaging through ornaments, I pick up three of my favorites. A trio of polar bears, made from a kind of velvet elvis-like material. They all have this innocent hey lady, where’s the hot chocolate and cookies look when really, they’re eyeing the red-lacquered wagon. And they do it every year … ha! One bear climbs in as the other two take up positions pulling and pushing the wiggly little cart across the window sill. It’s a sweet little vignette until the “it’s my turn to ride in the wagon” starts. But we’ve all been there…
The snowmen, generally a more gentlemanly bunch, find a place around a sparkly tree on a quiet sill away from the bears. Greenery gets hung around the fire place and candles lit in the hearth. The collection of Santas, with big bellies and spindly legs, have gathered around the wood-cut fir to admire the fine glass sleigh parked there and piled high with packages. Christmas music is playing and this year, snow surrounds our little place.
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There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. ~Erma Bombeck
I like believing in Christmas. I need the magic of toys, spinning tops, and familar ornaments coming back every year. And I love the idea of Santa Claus as someone who always has faith in what kids believe, seeing beyond wish-lists and into their hearts. The right jolly old elf doesn’t just leave a doll or stuffed animal, but playmates who never tire of tea parties, building forts in forests, or turning sticks into swords . These rag-tagged companions never object to being dragged along on all the Lewis & Clark-like expeditions kids love to make.
I think kids do more than just see the world. Kids feel it, the vibrations and energies of what is and what was… they can even sense a shimmering of how great it can be. Yet, I wonder: are we clogging the channels through which children feel the world?
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ~Dr. Seuss
In many ways, Christmas has become just another money-making scheme mascarading as a Hallmark moment. It seems filled with nothing more than mass-produced toys and gadgets, all untouched by human hands until released from their packaging. It is ironic, being inundated with meaningless things that ALL need to do something special and be something extraordinary. Do kids get a chance to recognize extraordinary? In what has become a staged play, where sets are dressed, packages wrapped, music cued, and Santa and/or deities are relegated as extras, just where do kids find special? Elmo, cell phones, violent video games, and designer anything own this holiday and, at large, our lives.
And what about the kids who get so little but are just as inundated by the wanting of stuff… things… Do they feel cheated or do they appreciate the few gifts even more than a mass of mass-produced whiz bang whirring clicking remote-controlled stuff?
I used to think it was us… that we were shallow and greedy and selfish. I don’t think that anymore. I think we’re just confused. Amateurs in a universe trillions of years old… and who knows, maybe the only living beings in all of this vastness. Most of us are doing the best we can. The best we know how.
Then it hit me… in a moment of weakness, of utter sentimentality, I was shocked to discover that I can still believe in stuff. Like what’s best in us will overcome what’s worst in us. That’s all. Yeah. We’ll fight to give our kids time to grow up and believe in magic. We’ll recover ourselves from the junk and the consumerism. Heh. We’ll put down our cell phones, walk away from our computers, stop the damned texting and instant messaging, and re-learn how to talk face-to-face again. And once our line of sight is free, we’ll remember to tell our kids about standing on principles and to always tell the truth. Good God… and they’ll be peace on earth. One day, this will happen if we believe in it. If we tell our kids this is what we believe. If we show them: the power of our beliefs makes us powerful.
People can’t concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December. ~Ogden Nash
Hey, hey there … oh shit. I have to go now. The damned polar bears are grumbling that the snowmen have a bigger window sill and the Santas are arguing about who’s the best reindeer. Oh for gods sakes… the Santa on the Harley thinks he’s Evel Knevel…
no… oh… he just crashed into the stereo. really, gotta go… all christmas is breaking loose here now…
hey you… and you… all of you… and fatdave where ever you are… happy holidays. and what would the holidays be without…
…a choir singing
some snow falling…
… or a little bit of Charlie Brown
Vince Guaraldi’s perfect score highlights “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The snow in the second video is falling to Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” also from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”
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2nd christmas day here and i need to go to bed.