HOLIDAYS – to greet or not to greet

If you live under a rock you wouldn’t know that the Holidays started late October and will race toward the final crescendo early January. If this trend continues we might soon start celebrating Christmas from mid-August, in red shorts, T-Shirts and sun-burned noses. Is that what you want? 

A Scandinavian Christmas song states that: “now it is Christmas again, now it is Christmas again and Christmas will last all the way till Easter.” If this was true, I’m sure the Holiday suicide rate would improve. The Holidays are nice, but boy, they have a lot of frustration, stress and high-end anxieties in the mix; I’m sure you agree, if you haven’t already freaked out. Deciding on Holiday greetings is just another ornament on the stress-filled tree.

Christmas is a celebration we have adhered to for a few thousand years. If we are involved in the religious aspect or not, doesn’t seem to be a factor. It’s celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, but do we all really acknowledge that or are some of us just on board for the ride?  

And talking about Jesus: Our youngest son was born on December 19th. That was not what we had planned as we had wanted him to fit in better with the academic school year. So his birthday is a few days before Christmas; the one-two-BANG. To me, we either screwed him in the present department or we over-compensated. But look at Jesus? What tough luck he had; his date of birth and Christmas on the same day – what a bummer… And imagine the gift dilemma his parents were going through; I mean how stressful is that? Luckily for them he was an only child.

Christmas cards used to be personal. When I was a young lad (1832) we made our own Christmas cards by cutting, gluing, coloring and writing. And finally we made that special and solemn trip to the mail-box so far, far away, through deep snow, howling winds and of course up-hill. We then turned around and struggled our way back home through even deeper snow, howling winds and up-hill yet again.

Today’s greetings are based on some frustration, stress and high anxieties as the choices of what we should and what we should not do adds massive pressure. It has become a game of politics it seems. We have so many options besides that old handmade Christmas card thing, and even when we do go the Christmas card way, most of the writing is already done for us – all we have to do is sign; if we even do that. What’s wrong with writing something ourselves? Don’t we have time or don’t we give a hooters? Or are we so busy and are the people we are trying to reach not that important? If not, why even bother? Should I write or should I not?

But the stress is getting even more complicated as we have options like E-Mail, Androids, text messages, iPhones, iPads, Kindle-Fire’s, Facebook, Twitter and the technological list is long. Though I’m getting better, I have a really hard time with the automated greetings – the ethics of it. But on the other hand, I have to accept that whole personal touch thing semi-died with the dinosaurs (that would be back in 1832 for those of you who are date-seekers); but I still try to make my Christmas greetings somewhat personal. But how to greet or how not to greet that IS the question…

I’m okay with people we care about sending us photo collages (thanks Caroline and John, Sue and Eric), because we do care. Okay so it makes us feel a year older, but it shows us how we all progress, how we grow up and that is cool. But I am totally against the Holiday newsletters, as they spell out bloody perfect lives and everybody in that family has only excelled and so forth. One year, I sent out a rather sarcastic response (some of my best humorous writing ever) “the-year-in-the-life-of…” newsletter. The following Christmas we didn’t even get an automated greeting from any of them – go figure.

I like getting Holiday greetings (except from the IRS, funeral homes and proctologists). I answer every single greeting I get if there is something to answer or comment about. I feel somewhat guilty if I get a greeting from somebody I didn’t send a greeting to, for whatever reason; but that’s when I swing into plan B – the Happy New Year greetings. I just make it sound like I didn’t send out any Christmas cards – they would never know the difference. One year I didn’t send anything out before Christmas, but waited till New Year and then I just send Happy New Year cards to the ones I got Christmas cards from; rather economical and as far as I know, nobody got hurt. But I ended up feeling flat, cheap, cunning and sleazy and those feelings have nothing to do with the Holidays, do they?

I like the Holidays, I really do. I’m not a religious person, but I respect the reasons for Christmas and whatever other celebrations that involves. The diversity of beliefs, faiths and traditions is just that – diverse and very exciting; a fact we should all respect.

I really don’t know what to do without the Holidays, this kind of year-end cozy part. So I bitch about writing Holiday greetings or not, but there is no serious importance in that - really. It’s just to greet or not to greet; it’s not about life or death. But actually, it is about life and about a rather celebrated birthday that became Christmas. And in the big Holiday picture scheme of things, if you believe or not, that is all pretty cool – seriously.

Until next Monday – Oh, and don’t get me started about Santa Claus, please.

Read in the Paper

The oldest dog on record died. It was Japanese and lived 26 years and 8 months. That is really, really old, something like 190 human years; I can swing with that. But I did giggle when the paper listed old age as the course of death – duh!

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