As the Holiday Season swings into full gear, it always becomes a time of anticipation and reflection. It just seems like yesterday that I was asking for that Allied Van Line toy truck as my last Santa present, which, by the way, he screwed up and gave me a Wyandott Moving Van instead. It took fifty years, but now I can say that it was the thought that counted.

The Holidays were always a time for hot chocolate, cookies, turkey and ham barbecues?  What do I know?  It was just our tradition?  The family would go to midnight church services and come back, open one present each, eat, and go to bed to await the coming celebration. It was lots and lots of work for the moms, and lots of curses for the dads as the presents were constructed, reconstructed, or deconstructed.

Dad and mom didn’t drink, but on this very special occasion, a tiny glass of Mogen David elderberry wine was consumed and for the next twenty minutes all they complained about was how hot their cheeks were.

Well, this year we have plenty of things to be thankful for…starting with our health.  We have plenty of things to look forward to as well, but, of course, the usual Holiday tensions abound.

Tonight, three more holiday gatherings, and a continuing argument by some of our contracted employees over holiday work coverage.  We have political maneuvering going on in every direction over numerous topics, and it’s my job to sit back, take a deep breath or seven, sort through what’s real and what’s not, dig to the bottom of the story, and make a decision based on the facts.  Yeah, that’s the holiday spirit.

Wonder if the guy who said, “There’s no room at the Inn” ever had any second thoughts?  Nah, it was planned that way.  As a former Quaker, Presbyterian, Catholic, and secular humanist, my mom always thought that everything was predestined.  So, maybe this is a cute little play that is just moving along one page at a time.

Well, let’s enjoy our families, our friends, our loved ones and our neighbors.  Let’s forgive and forget.  Let’s look forward to a better New Year, and be good, for goodness sake.

A song from the seventies always replays in my mind by the brother and sister group, The Carpenters:

Sometimes not often enough
We reflect upon the good things
And those thoughts always center around those we love
And I think about those people who mean so much to me
And for so many years have made me so very happy
And I count the times I have forgotten to say “thank you”
And just how much I love them