...And To All, A Good Night.

Ho, Ho, Heyyy…where did it all go?

All those weeks of hype, and in the blink of an eye, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are in the past, and we’re staring down the barrel of a brand new year. With it all behind us, I thought I’d use this space to share a few post-holiday thoughts that stuck with me last weekend.

• Somehow, big crowds and long lines and holiday chaos at the malls are a lot easier to handle the day before Christmas Eve than they are during the first few weeks of December. You’d think it wouldn’t be so, but as I was out for several hours of last-minute shopping on December 23 this year (a late date even by my standards!), I wasn’t nearly as frustrated with the hustle and bustle as I thought I might have been.

• If your buddies who are home for a few days for the holidays call you to go out, and you still have gifts to wrap and other things on your “to do” list, go out anyway. They’re your buddies. And if a couple hours turns into, oh, maybe four and a half…don’t worry. Things have a way of working themselves out.

• While the “Special XMAS” station I mentioned in my last entry can be a great mood lifter during the weeks leading up to Christmas, it seems only fitting on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to switch the dial to the “Classical Christmas” station one notch to the left that features big-production symphonies and choirs and traditional hymns in Latin and German and other ethereal carols. Just…because.

• Not having snow in the air—or on the ground—for Christmas is like not having chips and dip at a Super Bowl party. Something’s missing.

• If a beverage bills itself as a “Christmas Lager” on the label, and features honey and orange and spices in its ingredients, it might be entirely possible that it’ll end up getting tasted and then poured down the drain. Merry Christmas and all, but please leave the nutmeg and cinnamon out of my beer.

• “Silent Night,” sung on Christmas Eve…doesn’t matter if it’s by the Mormon Tabernacle or your local church choir…is as moving a song as has ever been written.

• If your 8-year-old niece asks you on Christmas Day what Santa brought you, after she'd been with you on Christmas Eve and seen the gifts you got during the family gift exchange, you'd better be a quick enough thinker to come up with a believable answer. (I'm not sure that I was. At first, I told her that I was naughty and that Santa didn't bring me anything. But I said it with a grin. So then I changed my answer and told her he brought me some books, because Santa knows how much I love books, and quickly shifted the topic to something else. I think I passed, but I've gotta work on my creativity.)

One big New Year’s Eve bash left for whomever wishes to ring in the new year in that fashion, and before you know it, the 2006 holiday season will be a memory and we’ll be grumbling for the snow to melt and why is it so cold and when is spring gonna get here and why won’t my car start?

Time. Marches. On.

“Next to a circus there ain’t

nothing that packs up and

tears out any quicker than

the Christmas spirit.”
—Frank McKinney Hubbard