This is the time of year my wife gives me The Stare. I know what follows.
“Have you sent out a Christmas card to your buddies Rick and Carolyn and … “ on and on, she goes.
I no longer try to come up with any excuses. I just give her my one-word reply. “Nope.” Then I walk out of the room if she is not blocking my way. I feel bad enough without her piling on.
There was a time when she wrote all the Christmas cards. But then several years back, she decided that I should write the ones to the people who are more connected to me than to her. I begrudgingly agreed. I tried for a while. I really did.
But I got to the point where I would only send out cards after I received one from a friend. When theirs didn’t arrive until a few days before Christmas … well, my bad. At least my my intentions were good.
Now it’s as if I have no intention of sending any cards. I don’t lack the Christmas spirit. I guess I’m just lazy.
So all you friends out there who sent us Christmas cards, don’t take it personally. I think you’re grand. Maybe I’ll send you a New Year’s card instead. Then again, maybe not.
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My wife makes sure she at least sends out cards to her friends back in her homeland of Scotland and to the Scots she knows who immigrated to Australia. As far away as they are, their cards are the first to come — many showing up in late November.
I told my wife that they must think we Yankees still get our letters delivered via the Pony Express. She in return told me to save my “horse hockey” for a more appreciative audience.
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I always am amazed at how quickly some of the Halloween decorations come out in the fall — sometimes not much after Labor Day.
And some people in our neck of the woods continue to leave them up so they can redecorate them in a Christmas theme. I’ve seen what was once a 15-foot skeleton now wearing a Grinch face and outfit and a few skeletons at another house sporting Santa costumes.
I guess I’m OK with it even though a Santa with a cadaverous crown under his red cap can be a little disconcerting.
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Christmas movies seem to bring out the delightfully odd names. Here are five or my favorites:
Clarence Oddbody ASC — The tubby little angel who saves George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” (The ASC stands for angel second class.)
Scut Farkas — The nasty bully who gets his comeuppance from Ralphie in “A Christmas Story.” His toady little buddy — Grover Dill — has a pretty unforgettable name, too.
Clark Griswold — The goofy keeper of the Christmas spirit in “America Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
Ebenezer Scrooge — Other than Santa himself and now maybe the Grinch, whose name is more synonymous with the power of believing than the antagonist-turned-protagonist in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol?”
Cindy Lou Who — The sweet little girl who believed the Grinch when he said he was stuffing her family’s Christmas tree in a bag so he could repair a light in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
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This is a time of joy for so many of us, but yet a time of sorrow for others who can have their losses magnified during the holidays. My one Christmas wish is that each of us reaches out to one of these people and gives him or her a little help and hope for 2024.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.