Post Christmas Observations

Christmas shows battle with family home videos for space on TV screens. Dieters try to escape the ubiquitous bowls of red-green Hershey kisses and peanut MnM's  on their way to wrap presents or find an empty chair. Multiple travelers eye the bathroom and furtively plan to relieve their indigestion at a quiet moment. Hostesses plan days of menus while grocery lists proliferate on neon paper and fly about the room like snowflakes on the winter wind. Pictures from weddings, baptisms, and reunions cover the walls as if several photo albums exploded their contents and stuck to the wallpaper. Everywhere you look are reminders of family history and traditions and special occasions where people who love each other gathered in fine clothes and smiling faces. I am also reminded of how young I once was, and how the children once were tiny.

Now dirty dishes proliferate, growing mounds of wrapped packages receive hourly inspections from dirty-fingered gremlins - cousins of all ages, shapes and sizes. Piles of gift cards mix in with boxes of playing cards and holiday photos are taped above the fireplace. Christmas-themed puzzles lay on the folding table, unpieced, for the bustle of holiday prep leaves scant opportunity for piecing together of puzzles, unless it's the puzzle of who gave me this gift? The spectre of many thank you notes loom in the distance.

Behind it all plays holiday music with the special theme of joyful laughter. Someone's laugh is the same frequency as "the clapper" for the Christmas tree lights and the lit strands go on and off with each bout of merriment - setting off fresh rounds. Daniel sits on "Santa's" lap and critiques his shoes, moustache and glasses frames, until poor Santa declares "Enough!" Grown cousins pass around the home grown bootleg whiskey and cough or spit out the fruit soaked with liquor before the curious eyes of children.

After the presents are unwrapped, the excitement drains out like a river basin after the flood. In its peaceful wake Lego's are assembled, quarters are placed in collection folders, and new electronics are studied. Family skits are plotted and laughed over and no one can remember the name of the horse in the "Jingle Bells" song. The perfect Christmas may have happened only once, 2,000 years ago, but this one is pretty darn close.