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Julia Gorin
The America Show
Episode 4
Jesus and Mordy
Watch Video Now
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Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco
by Burt Prelutsky
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America Alone
by Mark Steyn
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The CRO Store
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Santa Claus should have no difficulty finding our house on the night before Christmas because it’s illuminated by 5,800 tiny light bulbs in strings that required approximately nine hours to locate, unpack, untangle, test and install. Add another hour or two to replace the occasional string that fails every few days for no apparent reason.

Locating, unpacking, setting up and decorating our two pre-lighted Christmas trees have accounted, thus far, for at least another thirteen hours of labor. I say “thus far” because it is a work in progress. The tree trimming is never really finished because I keep finding boxes of ornaments in the garage, some of which, we haven’t seen in years, so carefully were they once packed away. I keep searching in vain for the beautiful ceramic sleigh and reindeers that my mother-in-law made for us. My wife accuses me of having covertly broken them or of inadvertently throwing them away along with the tons of discarded gift wrappings, ribbons and empty boxes that get disposed of annually on the first trash collection day after Christmas along with a few gift items that somehow got buried in the mess.

The decorations now mostly in place, we look forward to enjoying them. The pleasure they bring is fleeting, however, because they all have to be taken down and packed away again soon. We now turn to the task of addressing Christmas cards to our Christian friends and politically correct generic holiday cards to the others. This requires a minimum of three full days, allowing for researching addresses, trips to the post office, writing thoughtful, personalized  messages on each card and making decisions regarding who should get a religious card and who should get one with a picture of a snowperson or a bird with a branch in its beak.

The Christmas card ritual also requires that you review all the cards you received last year to make certain you haven’t forgotten anyone, whether or not you can remember who they are. You search your memory for forgotten life-changing events such as death, divorce, organ removal, natural disaster, loss of a limb, etc., which may cause you to want to reconsider the amount of holiday cheer you wish to share in a particular personalized message. It also entails composing a Christmas form letter which should eliminate having to write any personalized messages on the cards but you write them anyway because you’re embarrassed over sending an impersonal form letter. The Christmas letter ends up sounding just like last year’s, updated to include last summer’s vacation trip and, perhaps, recent surgeries. The cost for all of this comes to about—never mind. It’s Christmas. Who’s keeping track?

I rarely see my wife in December. That’s because she’s Christmas shopping. Where else would she be? She returns, frazzled, and says that it’s a jungle out there in the malls. I believe her and want no part of it. I wasn’t born with the shopping gene and I’m no good at it. She’s an expert. I used to be invited along to carry packages to the car and perhaps buy dinner but it has been determined in recent years that I slow down the process too much by looking for a place to sit or drink coffee. Effective shopping requires great focus, intensity and sense of mission.

This year, the holiday shopping season began before the Thanksgiving turkey had been digested. In fact, some shoppers skipped Thanksgiving altogether to stand in line or camp out in front of stores in order to be there when they opened on Black Friday. I thought that Black Friday was the name of a horror movie or a reference to the last time the stock market crashed but I learned that it refers to the day when retailers hope to make enough money to ensure a profitable year. We watched TV images that night of stampeding customers crowding past security guards for the privilege of being among the very first to spend all their money on gifts.  There were pictures of customers embracing their purchases as if they were objects of worship. Some stores resembled battlefields with full-blown riots still in progress. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. People were getting into the spirit.

Everyone is complaining that they are stressed emotionally and stretched financially. They don’t see how they can possibly get everything done before Christmas and they haven’t a clue what to get the remaining people on their gift list or how much to spend on them. Who started this business of lavishing gifts on everyone at Christmas?  The three wise men, you say? But they only brought gifts for the Christ child, not for all the adults. How did we manage to expand the custom of gift giving to every known relative, friend and co-worker, as well as the mailman and hairdresser?

I could go on with these reflections on the commercialization of Christmas, but I’ve got to wind up this column and get back to addressing Christmas cards before my wife gets home from Christmas shopping. We have to review each other’s progress toward getting ready for Christmas before getting ready to go to another Christmas party.

copyright 2006 J. F. Kelly, Jr.

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