Christmas

Christmas

I was busy on Christmas Eve, writing the third installment of the Mandela Effect when the missus and I got into a discussion about the commercialization of the “Holiday”. So I thought I’d take a break and note a few things about it. See, she spent pretty well all her life in the retail business, workin’ every Christmas Eve an’ Boxing Day, so she don’t have too healthy an outlook on the event. Well who would, strappin’ on all them fancy clothes an’ smilin’ for all them grouchy customers whose credit cards are more or less maxed out an’ they still gotta drive home in impossible traffic if they ever get through the checkout.

So I’m listenin’ to the news this mornin’ an’ they’re talkin’ about the stores losin’ millions o’ dollars this year ‘cause o’ the dang busted inclement weather down east. The airlines are gonna feel the hurt over the dang busted inclement weather down east too. It seems that it was the weather that stole Christmas, not the Grinch.

Well now, just hold ‘er a minute there Newt! Just what in the H E Double hockey sticks are we celebratin’ here anyways? Listen, I was always under the impression that if it’s somebody’s birthday celebration an’ you’re invited to the party, you’re supposed to bring ‘em a gift. I was sayin’ that on the day he was born, Jesus got some gold, some myrrh, an’ some frankincense. That was over two thousand years ago and he ain’t got diddly squat since. Oh, except for thirty years or so later, he got some nails an’ a cross, but otherwise – nothin’, nada.

So how did this all get turned around? How is it that on this special day we get all the gifts that the retailers have stuffed down our throats an’ there’s nothin left over for Jesus? Okay, okay, I know he’s dead in the normal sense. But accordin’ to the scriptures, he ain’t dead at all. Chapter an’ verse has been written about his resurrection an’ all that. You can read all about it right there in the New Testament an’ draw yer own conclusions. Watching Christmas mass bein’ celebrated last night in a multi gazillion dollar cathedral with the cardinals an’ deacons an’ priests all in their finery seemed to me to be a little over the top too. I found myself wonderin’ what the people in attendance were thinkin’ with all this pageantry. The one bright light in the whole business is that the new pope is a man of the people an’ he already shows signs of bringing his church to the people rather than the other way around. Just when you get totally cynical ‘bout how the world is goin’ to hell in a hand basket, a new hope springs up. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.