[Christmas Present #1] And So It Begins...Again

One of the truly great things about the holiday season  is that it has its own continuity.  In some ways, it hasn’t actually been around eleven months since my last 31 Holi-Days post; it has simply been “since last season”, a measure of time that isn’t reflected on any calendar, Mayan or otherwise.  So here I am again, ready to pick back up where I left off.  In the intro, I called it a sequel, but really it’s more of a continuation after a gap necessitated by the politics of time.  I mean, you can blog about the holidays in mid-July…and you can also enjoy a nice fall stay at Bellevue as a result of doing so.

In the real world, however, eleven months have passed.  In that time, I have bid unemployment a wonderful farewell, and really come up with a game plan for how I might also bid low-income an equally wonderful farewell by the time next year’s Holiday Series begins here on the blog.  Rhea’s mother’s shoulder, which had been badly broken at the end of last year’s run, is still in the process of healing.  It’s been a long road and shall continue to be one for some time to come, but she can once again move it in ways that were merely a pipe dream around the time of 31 Holi-Days #31.  My grandmother, whose 90^th birthday party we attended the same day Rhea’s mom had her accident will be 91 this year.  They don’t necessarily rent out the big room nor hire the Richard Cheese of the senior set for 91, but it’s still a damn good reason to celebrate.  And so on and so forth: life goes on, as has been written and demonstrated long before I set up this little lemonade stand on the side of the Information Super-Highway.

In some ways, it’s hard to even figure out what the holidays might mean in the wake of the devastation left behind not very far from here by Hurricane Sandy.  As corny as this sounds, it’s completely true: I have my family, a roof over my head, power, and no river in my basement – and those are certainly gifts enough for anybody.  To the afflicted, I hope the holidays bring some sense of normalcy this year: as bad as things may get, Santa still flies by like clockwork.

The more things change, the more Christmas/Chanukah/[your holiday of choice here] looks and smells and sounds the same.  We never truly solve the mystery of exactly what’s responsible for December’s magic, and I don’t believe we’re meant to, either.  We may unravel a piece or two of the fabric here and there – for example, I have an update on the enigmatic, unforgettable SHARON that I’ll share at an appropriate moment later in the series – but even then, they are duly replaced by new squares in the tapestry.  This is a very excellent thing; after all, if there were nothing new to discover about the season, there would be no need for this continuation.  And that, says the author, would truly be a drag.