Something About Winter...

So, Bellingham has just emerged from a week-and-a-half long deep freeze, complete with snow and ice, barely drive-able roads, and requisite traffic accidents.

Is it weird that I was made homesick?

New York is one of the great winter cities in the country.  Yes, I am biased a bit, but hear me out.  New York has earned a reputation for being a rough place, filled with blunt, rude people who will run you over if you get in their way.  It's a crucible that takes the weak-minded, undisciplined, and poor and either forge them into something stronger, or kills them under the weight and pressure of living there.  Some of that rep is justified, some isn't.  It's not up to me to sift through which is which.

However, for the six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, the city softens a bit.  Maybe it's the brainwashing from all the holiday music that yo hear from every place that has a speaker, but for that time, it never seemed as bad.  People were generally nicer to one another.  Kindness was seen on the surface.  As people geared up for the season, you could see it, feel it, a particular and unique kind of spirit.

It's the same as in small towns, when you see a kid's face light up as they meet Santa (TM) for the first time.  The big city is no different.  The Salvation Army still rings bells at every street corner, and people still drop their spare change into the big red pots.  Lights are strung up from every lamppost, intersections are made more festive.  Storefronts put up amazing displays.  And while NYC does it on an entirely different scale...

... it's still Christmas.  Or Hanukkah.   Or whatever you want to call it.

Don't get me wrong, New York in the dead of winter offers bone-chilling temperatures, schizophrenic weather patterns, and sometimes a kind of bleak that there isn't a word for, but for those six weeks, that specific time of year, it doesn't seem half bad.

Benediction (short post)

Okay, so it's the closing hours of... well everything.  The Mayans, who couldn't predict their end at the hands of the Conquistadors, foretold that the world will end sometime in the next 24 hours.  Of course, this is nonsense, but let's assume for a second that they're right, and all my efforts to save the world (basically drinking and partying) fail.  I'm not worried about how it'll happen, or what it'll be like.  I'm worried about dying and not getting to say what I have to say.  The most important thing I'll ever say, ever again.

I love you.

And you.  You too, over there in the back.  All of you.  Even you, right there.  All the family, the friends I've had, the loves, the haters, the critics and the supporters.  I love each and every last one of you.  More than any of you can possibly realize.  The experience of knowing you, of being in the presence of your words and emotions, good and bad, has shaped me into who I am and who I've tried to be.  Even if I haven't spoken to you in years, or we just talked yesterday.

I'm going to do everything I can to save us (read: party and drink).  In the event I'm not successful, you should know this.  And if I am successful...

Th world as we know it should end.  The hatred should be replaced with love.  The apathy should be exchanged for compassion.  Division should be countered by unity.  There's more that we have in common than we have different.  Remember that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a world to save.

Commercialized Christmas Values

The other night while I was getting a patient ready for bed, she flipped the channel on the TV to one of those Hallmark Movie Channel Christmas flicks.  You know the ones, the overly sappy love story with the slightly religious feel-good message about change, growth and the meaning of the holiday and life in general.  Secretly, I kinda like 'em.  Laugh if you want, just keep in mind that I'm likely bigger than you.

Anyway, in this movie there's this horrible shrew of a woman who rails against the commercialization of Christmas, saying how much better she is and her family is than that, how they spend Christmas on missions in Mexico or Botswana, or some other poor nation doing good deeds, and how dare this school have her daughter join a choir and sing songs.  Christmas is about the love of Christ, she said.  It was a particularly annoying diatribe that did what it was probably supposed to do.

While watching this, the brain/mouth filter switches off and I launch into my own speech about the commercialization of Christmas.  The fact is, people like stuff. Especially in wrapping paper.  There's the act of unwrapping stuff which makes people feel good and makes people feel like the person that went through all the trouble of putting it together really cared.  Christmas is supposed to be about love, about togetherness, about letting the people around you know how invaluable they are to you, regardless of your religious affiliation.  That is why we give the gifts, why we sing the songs and roast the chestnuts and drink the eggnog.  Well, that and because eggnog is awesome.

I know that the original intent is to celebrate the birth of Christ, but when did they have pine trees in the desert?  I think we should embrace the spirit of what Christmas has become, where we open stuff in pretty paper from people who took the time and care and effort to wrap it.  Where we eat terrible fruitcake, and gingerbread cookies because they make us feel good and connected to the people around us.  Where we stuff our faces and tell good stories with family and friends that we may or may not see for another year  Where for one day, and by extension the six week stretch that precedes it, we're not so focused on our differences, but our commonalities.

And then, as I finished the set-up on my patient, I realized I said this out loud.  She looks at me and smiles, and says "You should write that down."

Embrace your family.  Your friends.  Have a drink.  Smile, laugh and sing songs.  Enjoy shredding that wrapping paper.  It is one of the few pure joys we have.  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Festivus to us all!

Wanted: Claus, Santa (reprint)

So the song is on the radio at work.

                        You better watch out, you better not cry

                        You better not pout I'm tellin you why

                        Santa Claus is Coming to town.

And here I am, humming along with the song when I realize something; this is a threat.  This is a warning as blatant as any orange alert the federal government placed on New York in the last four years.

 Santa Claus is coming to town.

Now how is this a dire threat, you may ask?  How is an old fat man with a fluffy white beard at all dangerous?  Think about it; every story you hear about the old man has him doing something illegal.  Santa Claus (aliases include St. Nicholas and Father Christmas) should, at least, be in possession of the most speeding tickets ever, and worst be the most wanted international criminal since Jack the Ripper.  He should be the cause of more childhood fear than The Boogeyman in the closet and the monsters under the bed combined.

Think of it; the opening line of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town?"  Sounds like a threat; right there, it's menacing.

Making a list and checking it twice?  Only serial killers do that.

            He sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake?  A Stalker!  A Peeping Tom, for Christ's sake!

But wait, there's more!  A guy who climbs up and down chimneys in the dark of night?  Breaking and Entering.  An old man who likes to give "presents" to kids?  Pedophile.  Accepting “cookies” and “milk” for “presents?”  That sounds a lot like extortion, graft, and corruption.  Flying reindeer in the dead of winter?  Illegal genetic tinkering, and cruelty to animals to boot. The reindeer's hooves on someone's roof should definite count as vandalism and property damage, plus illegal operation of aircraft. A workshop at the North Pole surely violates several international labor laws.  And what exactly are elves?  Small people?  Exploiting the vertically challenged at best, at worst, he's running a sweat shop with kids, not to mention the probability of counterfeit goods being produced. And don't get me started on the "Magic pixie dust" -- isn't that what they called LSD?

And how does he get all around the world in one night?  Sounds like somebody's going a little high on the radar gun.  And those sleigh bells, and the trademark yell of "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night?"  at that hour of the morning on Christmas Eve.  Disturbing the peace, no question.

So parents, tuck your kids away tonight.  Kiss them on their forehead.  And for God's sake, watch out and don’t let them pout.

Santa Claus is coming.  And he's watching you.