Happy Holidays, Gentle Readers!
I had planned on writing a snarky think piece about Hallmark Christmas Movies this week; I’m visiting my family for Christmas this week, and whenever I do that I tend to be exposed to an alarming number of the things. But as I’ve remarked before, 2016 has just been too brutal for snark. (I mean, dear Heavens, it felled the man who sang “Last Christmas” on Christmas Day itself. That’s sadistic beyond imagining.) So I scrapped those plans. Perhaps another year.
Besides, it’s Christmas, and I’ve been too busy seeing my family, and baking pumpkin pies, and chaperoning small animals, and opening my presents to do much writing. (I got a new toaster, a tool set, and some slacks, and was delighted, which shows you how old I am.) I also managed to steer family viewing away from those Hallmark films and towards the classics, and it’s an exchange from one of those – Miracle on 34th Street – which I’ll offer as my day-after-Christmas Christmas message for everybody:
"For the past 50 years or so I've been getting more and more worried about Christmas. It seems we're all so busy trying to beat the other fellow in making things go faster and look shinier and cost less that Christmas and I are sort of getting lost in the shuffle."
"I don't think so. Christmas is still Christmas."
"Oh, Christmas isn't just a day. It's a frame of mind."
See you in 2017, everybody! Hopefully we'll all be in a much better frame of mind then.