PittsburghThoughts

Christmas is upon us. Like a giant blood sucking mosquito it will suck out our resources, money, labor, time and sanity, then, clumsily, do its aeronautical equivalent of a stagger under the weight of our tangibles and intangibles as it becomes airborne only to return in one year for another free feast.

 

If we had a lick of sense we would starve the beast by simply wishing one another Merry Christmas and moderate our insatiable appetites to consumer and dump loads of unwanted, unneeded crap on our kids and relatives. But, since we don't, the cycle keeps spinning, gaining momentum, mass and speed so much so that we have become secondary to the dark forces that send the mosquitos. We are a service plaza on the mosquito interstate highway. 

 

Of course ... There are people that enjoy the rattle and hum, the same masochistic segment of our culture without whom advertisers would be forced to live according to their true nature and become stick-up men. They are the martyr prone service class, the mothers and grandmothers who dote uncontrollably whenever junior leaves a fart or earns a "C-" in English class.

 

They have stores of wrapping paper squirreled away in the basement, They approach Christmas with the fervor and gusto of a hungry hound dog. The department stores should give them a free shopping day at least once a year, particularly in the underwear department. Their saving grace is that they keep the rest of us from having to act as if we care, at least to a greater extent than we already do, if only, for appearance sake..

 

Some perceived caring is essential, otherwise our cover is blown. To be viewed in our actuality would be to devastate and maybe even isolate the ones we depend on the most for the innumerable things that do for us and give us; the sense that we  participate in life as civilized, decent, well adjusted males.  

 

As our Christmas induced deficit raises and the "meaning of Christmas" dissolves into unintelligible fragments, as people rush like stockyard animals to the slop-trough of consumerism, as the mass media gathers its powers and swells with its yearly adulterous erection ...

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Somewhere in my faded memory I hear the celestial reverberations: Silent Night, Holy Night ... Good tidings to you and all of your kin,  I hear the jingle, the neigh of the horse as he pulls the sled over the river and through the woods, I squint hard and see Santa with his cherubic face and Ho, Ho, Ho, I remember believing, I remember the tree with its ancient bubble lights, the poor families doing their best to make Christmas special, the silver dollar I was given when they were still made of silver, my kids, eyes wide and full of happiness and excitement, the automatic rifle slung over my son's arm, the building blocks, the doll's flashing eyes, the endless supply of Christmas cookies, the smells, the sights and sounds, the laughter, the relatives, the friends ...

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Christmas isn't ... out there,,,, it's here, in our heart.    Gene