CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

Entry 12/23

Entry 12/23:





Dear Constant Readers:





Please read all of this entry before screaming:


“Off with her head!”





First composed for Christmastide 2007:





    Let me specify first of all that I do NOT do Christmas-not since childhood. Halloween is my favorite holiday and that is because a] it’s spooky and b] it doesn’t invoke family spirit. I don’t do Thanksgiving either. When my children were small I tolerated the gift giving for their sake. When I’ve lived with family members, I’ve had to tolerate Christmas [and Thanksgiving] because of the children. However, I do it grumbling “Bah humbug!” [literally]





        Christmas 2006 ranks as one of the worst since my married days [1974-1984]. My ex showed with his current wife [they married in November 1985, but he left her in the early spring of 2006, to take up with his current girlfriend, although he and the Wife continued to “see” each other until she moved out of state. Rather than bringing the girlfriend for the grandkids’ Christmas celebration, he brought the Wife [who is stepgrandmother, not genetic grandmother].





    At that time my PC was still in the living room with daughter’s PC and son-in-law’s PC. The smaller couch had been positioned in the middle of the room facing the TV, with the three PC’s on the window wall behind it. So ex and Wife faced the TV and the three grandkids opening presents. The 3.5 year-old cried through the entire event; and Grandma, who had no income and neither gave nor received, watched “Black Christmas” on the PC and found it certainly did not live up to its horrifying billing.





Revision composed 12/22/09:





December has many holidays, all of which have worthwhile and significant value to believers in many different religions and cultures. To the best of my knowledge, Christmas is the only one that has been so extraordinarily commercialized. I sometimes feel that only rarely, through the shouts of Madison Avenue barkers, can I occasionally hear one or two still, small, voices, crying out in the wildnerness, their words and meaning drifting away on a desert wind:





         “Put the Meaning back in Christmas! Remember the Reason for the Season! Give us back True Christmas!”{/c:green}