Best Christmas Ever

I miss the clanging of The Salvation Army bells on the street corners of downtown Boston. The bells are silent because someone complained about the noise. If there are gunshots on the same corner, nobody notices.
The person who fought to remove a Christmas Nativity display from a local town common has filed a petition to have candy canes removed from the town’s holiday decorations because of the candy’s religious overtones. Who knew?
Santa is under fire by a politically correct coalition who wants him to lose weight and go on a low carb diet to send a healthy message to the children. Another group wants to change Santa’s laugh from “Ho-Ho-Ho” to “Ha-Ha-Ha” because someone was offended by the word “Ho”.
My Christmas lights are in disarray. I couldn’t find last years storage boxes in the attic, so I had to improvise. Since I was pressed for time, my wife and son offered to help me decorate in the cold. Actually, my son stood there watching me while my wife proceeded to take down the lights I just strung up on the porch.
“Why are you taking down those lights?” I asked.
“You put them up in the wrong place,” she answered. I was smart enough not to argue.
I was waiting for a warm day before Christmas when I had nothing to do so I could redecorate the outside of the house when no one was around. This week’s foot-and-a-half of snow squashed that idea. The lights look fine to me now.
I’m looking forward to going out for a Christmas Eve dinner I can’t afford. “Order whatever you want,” I tell the kids. “Christmas comes but once a year.” And then I have to pay for it over the next 12 months. When a restaurant has no prices beside their lobster dishes on the menu, it’s too expensive for anyone to order. Last year I learned the hard way. Although the price of the lobster included a ringside seat to a fistfight at the next table in the dining room of the elegant restaurant we chose. Nothing says Christmas like a violent altercation by screaming members of a dysfunctional family. Tis the season after all.
Our plans may change this year. My youngest son is recovering from strep throat. I thought he was pretending to be sick so he could stay home from school. My older son is home recovering from back surgery, adding to the festivities. Another Xmas on Oxycontin for him this year. Stay away from my eggnog martinis.
The troubled economy adds another layer of gloom to the holidays this year. While Christmas shopping, I pass people on the street who look disheveled and out of work. No one looks happy, not even the well-to-do woman in the expensive red jacket carrying her Newbury Street bags full of gifts for herself as she checks in with her nanny on her cell phone. I sip my $4 Starbucks Espresso Truffle while trying to get that warm fuzzy holiday feeling, but the caffeine only gives me a headache and makes me hyper.
I was already out of time before the holiday season began. Still, I braved long lines to buy things for my wife and children. Hopefully they’ll like some of the things I bought or them. I’m trying to be practical this year. I’m giving my wife gifts she’ll use. Within reason. I learned my lesson the year I gave her a vacuum cleaner. I never went Christmas shopping at Sears again.
I am always grateful for any gifts I receive, even if they’re not what I wanted. I should be the easiest person on anybody’s list. I love homemade things. I love books and music. I’m beginning to wonder if my family knows me at all.
Christmas morning, my bizarre winter hay fever usually kicks in. Maybe I’m allergic to pine trees. I spend the morning sneezing as clear liquid pours from my nose. I use all three handkerchiefs I stuffed in my bathrobe pocket as we open our gifts. I make a pot of coffee and wish for something other than decaf, but that’s all we have in the cabinet since my wife’s mystery illness manifested itself in November. I suppose there are worse things than living without caffeine.
I notice how our Nativity set has grown smaller over the years. It’s no longer in the living room on prominent display. The hand-made stable my wife’s father built, along with the large ceramic figures her mother painted for us, are packed away in a dark corner of the attic. Maybe if I look hard enough, I’ll find the true meaning of Christmas up there too.