Such is the Christmas season. It comes... it goes... but it always comes back. Black Friday comes and America's shopping hordes flock to the stores where the yearly ritual of blood lust, deals on crap, and man's cruelty towards man is carried-out. We raise our synthetic trees. We festoon our homes with lights. Some are less a display and more of an explosion. We indulge in food and liquor to the limit of diabetic shock, knowing but not caring how much our asses will shake come January. We buy, and spend, and wrap, and stack beneath our trees. We give to and receive from the one's we love. That's if we have one's to love. And finally we reach that New Year, and the grey, cold morning hung-over and pickled. That day of anxious despair before we must face the cold doom of a new year... the future.
When I was a child, the entire season was one of pleasure and anticipation. But as I grew older and found that most of what I loved most about the holiday was mostly a series of lies, I had to face the reality of Christmas for adults. That absence of magic. That emptiness. I was nine. Now I have only to find pleasure in the chores of the season. Hanging the lights. Putting the tree together. Listening to the sounds of the season. My favorite is the Phil Spector Christmas album. Indulging in the treats made by loved one. That's some mighty find fudge packing, Kim. And finally watching my programs. My two favorite Christmas flicks have to be "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "A Christmas Story"... and maybe the "A Christmas Carol" starring George C. Scott.
Something about "A Charlie Brown Christmas" has always struck me. Perhaps the five-and-dime animation, or the wry humor, or maybe just the story of poor Charlie Brown trying to find meaning the holiday that every year seems to have less and less. I identify with Charlie Brown. I was the same way as a kid. I was too smart for my age and not particularly good at anything. It robbed me of a lot of happiness. Then again, I'm still that way as an adult. So what the fuck, life? Throw me a bone. Or at least my own Christmas special.
A Christmas Story... I fell in love with it from the time I first saw it. I think Jean Shepherd captured something about life that nobody before and probably since has been able to. I remember what it was like to be a kid... to want something THAT badly and to face the probability of failure at every turn. Poor Ralphie Parker, he could never catch a break. But he did get that gun, and he did almost shoot his eye out. As is life. The man who got what he wanted had it blow-up in his face. But he also got to enjoy Chinese duck.
Perhaps that's what the season is all about. No matter how shitty your year has been - and as you get older, they usually get shittier - so long as you have warmth, and people, and some chinks on the table, your holiday is everything it needs to be.
