Christmas Eve Blahs

It may be beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but, to me at least, it doesn't feel like it.

This is only my second Christmas without my mother, and for some reason it feels less merry than my first one.  Perhaps that's to be expected with Donald Trump having returned to power and trashed everything.  But there have been other reasons.  A few weeks ago, the side-view mirror on my car get damaged and, because it's illegal to drive with even one damaged side-view mirror, I had to stay home during the annual Christmas historic-house tour that Essex County, New Jersey has every first weekend of December.  I had to miss some big local tree lightings, too.  I've also gotten bored with hearing the same Christmas songs over and over again on the radio (played every year by the same iHeart station - yuck!), and I was unable to go anywhere for holiday enjoyment in mid=December because of a previously scheduled colonoscopy.

The biggest void is no one to exchange gifts with.  I put up my tree like I did last year, and after having done such an abominable job decorating it last year, I was pleased this year when it came out better.  But the cats still keep messing it up. though I wouldn't trade my little fur babies for anything. 

It hasn't been a total washout.  This past Sunday, I went into New York to see model-turned-jazz singer Pat Cleveland, my previous interaction with whom you may remember, perform a set of songs, and she turned out to be a delightful performer as well as a fine singer.  I only knew about her show because her husband, whom I'm connected to on social media (it's complicated, don't ask me to explain it) invited me, and I was happy to go.  It cost me a pretty penny to get there and back as well as for the who itself, but it was worth it.  

I still have some sadness, though, if only because of where we Americans are as a sorry excuse for a nation.  Fourteen months ago this time, I expected to be celebrating Christmas 2025 with a woman who looks a lot like Pat Cleveland running the country and embodying a new birth of freedom; instead, I have given up on These States and I am openly advocating secession and disunion.  But the lack of someone to exchange presents with is still depressing enough.  It's a shame not to have someone to receive a gift from.  It's even more of a shame not to have someone to give a gift to.

Tough, but true.

Christmas 2024

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Greetings

 

Christmas Greetings

Wacko Week

 Too much to talk about this Boxing Day . . .

Donald Trump won't sign a badly needed COVID relief bill without changes Congress is unlikely to make even as he vetoed a defense spending bill before sending a Christmas message to the troops thanking them for their service without irony, even as a bomb went off in Nashville.  Yet the biggest bombshell is a series of punishments for war criminals and for campaign operatives so corrupt to make even G. Gordon Liddy blush.  We could be heading toward Armageddon or something like it when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve and we try to wish each other a happy 2021 . . . without irony.

Meanwhile, on the home front, that storm that blew through New Jersey on Christmas Eve spared me a power outage (though people in nearby Bergen County, New Jersey weren't so lucky), but the mail has been so slow that our cable bill is late getting to the cable company (and, as of Christmas Eve, past due!) while I wait for a paycheck that was mailed ten days ago as of this writing.  Israel once fought a war in less time than that.  And not only did I not get to see "A Charlie Brown Christmas" this year, I didn't even get to see the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott as Scrooge, which we do in my house every year, because our DVD copy of the movie got put away and now we can't find it.  We may not find it until Memorial Day.

I need not comment or rant any further . . ..

Christmas 2020

Christmas 2019

Have yourself a very kitty Christmas! :-)

Christmas 2018

Christmas Music Video Of the Week - December 7, 2018

"Here Comes Santa Claus," Gene Autry  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Merry Christmas!

About Hanukkah and Christmas And All That . . .

I want to set the record straight.  if Hanukkah is the "Jewish Christmas," then Christmas is the Christian Saturnalia.  Many people insist that Hanukkah is played up as a Jewish version of Christmas, but it's worth noting that neither Hanukkah nor Christmas are particularly holy days in either faith.  Christmas is on December 25 because the early Christians wanted to co-opt the feast of the Roman god Saturn, held between December 17 and 23, and celebrated with food, drink, and gambling.  By turning the anniversary of the Nativity into a celebration, it was a good way to get pagans to convert to Christianity.  But it's not the holiest day in the Christian calendar - that would be Easter Sunday, the anniversary of the Resurrection - which is the essence of and the reason for the faith. So, Christmas is technically a played-up Saturnalia.

So when you hear evangelical politicians in Washington complain about being forced to work through "the holiest day of Christianity" when they have to work on Christmas Day, don't listen to them.  As Christians, they don't know what they're talking about.  

As for Hanukkah, Christmas, and Saturnalia happening (or in the case of Saturnalia, having happened) simultaneously, that's no accident.  They're all festivals that take advantage of the onset of winter and give people a chance to make merry before the worst of the season sets in.  That's a custom pre-dating all of Western civilization. Winter solstice rituals, anyone?