It’s almost here!!!!!

It’s almost here!!!!! The day so many of us wait for all year long. Or as that great American philosopher and satirist Jean Shepherd tells us in “A Christmas Story”, “Lovely, beautiful, glorious Christmas, around which the entire kiddom year revolves.”

For me kid refers to a state of mind and not to a chronological measurement. So Christmas is the time for surprises, for the unexpected, for miracles.

Beatrice and i have gotten to the point in life where we have just about all we want, so gift buying has become difficult. Add in the internet and a credit card and the world is yours with a simple click.  So many of the gifts we will receive tomorrow morning will have been bought by us, wrapped by the other, and then opened by us to our great surprise. But then there is the Santa ‘Clause’ which can never be factored out.

What is special for us this year is that we are celebrating at home at the Frog & PenguINN for the first time in three years (the last three included being with the Grand Son). Of course the festooning began as ‘just a few decorations’, ‘lets not go crazy and do the whole house’. These thoughts led me to not just light the front of the house but also the patio, my shop, the barn, and next year the green house. Inside we seem to have run out of places on tables, chairs, shelves (had to put up 2 new ones") and door knobs for the left over deco’s (and there are a lot). BUT we didn’t get tooooo crazy. That second tree in the library was just aching to get out of it’s box.

But Christmas is about more than Decos and gifts. Even my hero the Grinch finally realized that. Christmas Eve and Christmas day always seem like a time when folks are just a little kinder, nicer to each other. They share easier at Christmas even if they don’t have a lot to share. They wish each other good health, happiness, and most of all peace, something that we always seem to be very short of.  If we could only make it last all year long (good thought for a song).

Tonight we will share our meal with long time friends and a neighbor who is alone this Christmas (and who ever else happens to stop by). Tomorrow we will share our meal with other friends and neighbors and anyone else who has no one to share with. Being a very Scotch/Irish and Italian household, no one is turned away or leaves hungry.

BUT beyond the decorations, gifts, warm feelings, and sharing we will not forget who’s birthday we are celebrating. The birth of one solitary man who has changed the world more than any other human in all of the worlds history.

Merry Christmas.

Peace, love and joy to all.

Happy Birthday Jesus.