Saturday Aggregate

Saturday Aggregate:

Seems like in spite of our best efforts the prevent it Christmas will happen. All the out of town packages were mailed out Tuesday, accompanied by the usual dire warning from behind the USPS counter ‘never gonna make it for Christmas’. They ALWAYS say that. I am convinced that they would say it if I was mailing Christmas packages in July. The packages ALWAYS make it.
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Stores are in a quandary. Is today the last Saturday before Christmas? Or is it next weekend, Christmas eve? Money grubbing merchants want to know. Honestly, what would happen if they lost next Saturday to the idea that maybe they could shutter the doors and let the employees go home? Scrooge is alive and well in commerce.
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I am on a one man campaign to make people say “Merry Christmas” instead of “happy holidays.” When wished “happy holidays” I ask what holiday? They smirk and say Christmas. I say, “then say, Merry Christmas.”
I am taking this far too seriously, methinks.
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I did my last Christmas shopping last Tuesday. At the MALL. I hate the MALL. It was a joy. No one was there. You could have fired rockets in the hallways and not hit too many. Santa was absent from his perch in the middle of the MALL. There were no lines at the checkouts. It was a leisurely, almost pleasurable process. I was done in 15 minutes, back in my car in the parking lot wondering where I could get a beer and burger at 10am. Wonderful, most time of the year.
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I become very sentimental of late. It’s that time of year for me and for whatever reason, age most likely, I am more prone to bouts of melancholy. I sort of like it. I like watching “Scrooged” and sobbing quietly when that scene comes on where Bill Murray is being cremated. I like that I get choked up when I hear “The Carol of the Bells” for the 25th time in a day. I enjoy getting misty eyed over writing the Christmas cards. It’s probably ‘… an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.’
That or my booze intake has increased to the point where everything just sort of seems full of the season. I even smiled at my goofy neighbor. Normally I would give him the finger.
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Is it over the top to cry watching sad deodorant commercials? I thought so.
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The best thing about this holiday season so far? Hands down, the weather. Temps moderate, mostly fairly warm and NO SNOW! An inch of snow on Christmas morning, melted by noon would be OK.
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I want to be an employee of the state lottery system. Specifically the “scratch-off” division, which is really the rip off division. I put lottery tickets in the Long-suffering wife’s Christmas card. $20 worth. She won….a free ticket. Rah.
The lottery truly is a tax on the stupid.
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I am stuck here in the house all day working. The LSW has to finish up all the Christmas shopping and do the grocery order by herself today. I am trying very hard to act as though this is a tremendous burden and I feel bad about the way the schedule worked out. She may have seen through me. My penance is that I have offered to make dinner.
Chili.
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I am off to write my column for the “Weekender”. It will appear the Wednesday before Christmas and then I will not have an article until after the New Year. I should do something heartfelt and nostalgic. But I haven’t had any grog yet today so I probably won’t.