God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman...

It is Christmas again, so soon.  The years do roll on.  Christmas has become mostly a non-event in my immediate family.  I still have great memories of the few Christmas morns before I realized my parents were lying about Santa Claus, and the memories when my children believed my lies about about Santa Claus.  Why do we lie to our children about such a thing?  It is antithesis to Christmas. 

If lying about Santa is not enough to give you a lifelong series of winter blues, there are the adult years of Christmas excess, commercialism, and people being trampled to death at Walmart and Best Buy.  Actually, this year I did not hear of anyone being trampled to death but perhaps I was not listening because all that was in the news was the big gun "debate".  I had to turn it off. 

I was once a Christian, if believing in Jesus with all of your heart makes you a Christian.  But that too has been stripped from Christmas by all of the lights and needless expense and the fact that our retailers can only stay in business if they do well between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Bah.  Humbug.  Now I know that Jesus was one of many ascended souls who came to earth in an attempt to teach us we do not need the NRA telling us what to do.  The thing is, I look for Jesus in others the year 'round because he never existed in Christmas and he never intended to exist in Christmas.  Like a lot of other things, Christmas is something we just made up, probably to make ourselves feel better about the long nights and short days.  Thank goodness Jesus can still be found in such people as Barry Feaker of the Topeka Rescue Mission, and all of his brethren across the entire world who truly feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.

As is the custom in my empty nest, I honor the day by doing something small and special for my companion animals.  I am not attempting to contaminate them with the horrible abyss Americans have made of the idea of Christmas.  It is for nostalgia's sake, and because it is as good a day as any to acknowledge how much I truly love and appreciate the ying-yangs.  Ginger and Wally are receiving brand new lime green buckets that hang on the fence so they can eat their morning oats with ease.  I will have to tie the buckets to the fence but even then I do not expect them to last long.  The horses will only care about those buckets exactly as long as there are oats in them. 

The dogs Duke and Jake get two milk bones for breakfast.  I will sneak the old Dukenator a couple of extra because, even though he is old and cannot get around on his four legs any better than I can get around on my two, he still stands in the middle of the driveway barking to warn me when Dan and his crew arrive to work on the new house.  For all Duke knows, those trucks might be driven by meth addicts, not carpenters.  Jake runs to hide.   

Later in the day I am going to meet with the real Ying-Yangs, my adult children.  We are going to spend the afternoon together thoroughly enjoying ourselves despite the fact that all three of us are entirely broke and cannot afford a horrible American Christmas this year.  We are not so broke that we are spending the day with Barry Feaker, so we have much to be thankful for.

As is the custom:

Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward (Some) Men

From the Critters and the Crazy Woman at Spirit Creek