Briane Pagel's Blog: Thinking The Lions, page 25

28 Xmas Stories, 25: "One by one then ten by ten then hundreds upon scores"

We Went Off All A’Riding (A Xmas Epic Poem, Part 3.)
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I thought I’d breathed my last but then I woke in quiet darkI could hear no sounds around meAs I caref’lly lit a spark.
Then with my torch held low, I lookedAround the empty tomb.I could not see my wife, nor sonsNor nothing in that gloom.
Behind, I heard a scuffle-soundAnd turned with quick’ning dread.But my fears were baseless; I Saw just the old man’s head.
He beckoned with a bony arm,He bade me follow close.I went with him down a narrow pathWhere neither of us spoke.
At last we came to a tiny room,Where I beheld my wife:Tending my two injured sons.The third had lost his life.
“Come you far?” the old man asked,His withered face grown curious.I told him of our journey,His expression turned mysterious.
He sat down in the corner,And wrapped his blanket tight.He held his head with bony handsAnd blocked us from his sight.
I laid my hand upon his,And begged him tell us please,What had hurt his spirit so,And how his pain might ease.
He raised his eyes up to us then,They glistened with his tears.“I had by now no hope left in me,”He said “After these years,”
“This endless span while I was trapped,The world locked far away,I supped on nothing but despair,I drank naught but decay.”
“I scarce believed my ancient eyes,”He went on, his voice quiet“When in the antechamber there,I saw that battle-riot.”He ducked his head back to his hands,A sob came shudd’ring out.He looked back up at us, and thenLet out a mighty shout.
“Seek you now your lost Xmas?” He cried, and spread his hands.“It sits before you in this cave –Long banished from your land.”
“I am Xmas, come to life,”He told us, “Once I wasA healthy jolly happy man.Not this decrepit corpse.”
“Starved from lack of faith, I am,”He wailed, and clapped his head.“I waste a little more each day,And soon I will be dead.”
“Banished!” my wife spoke up, her faceQuite angry, eyes aflame.“You left us o’ your own accord!You’ve got yourself to blame!”
I tried to calm her, smooth things out,But the old man spoke up first.He gave a sad long laughing sigh And said: “You think the worst.”
“’Twas not me who left you,” He said, his head held low.“Your people threw me out the door,So many years ago.”
“I used to visit every year,Just when the snow first fell.I’d loose the good and happy cheerYou kept inside yourself.”
“But each year on, my visits grewMuch harder to maintain,As men and women, girls and boysMy spirits did abstain.”
“One by one then ten by ten, Then hundreds upon scores,Humanity gave up on me,They pushed me out the door.”
“Your thoughts became much less aboutPeace on earth, to men goodwill,And dwelt upon much harder thingsLike gold and silver, power and thrill.”
“Those barriers you faced?” he said.“Those monsters, ice and walls?They were erected by yourselves –They stand because you fell.”
“Eventually I could not fightI could not make my way.So stuck here in this cave I stayed,Right to this very day.”
A long still silence fell around,‘Til I reached out my hand.“Not everybody wants you goneFrom our beloved land.”
We told him that we’d bring him back, And he agreed to try.We carried him up from that cave,The ice-bats standing by.
They took another of my sons, But soon we’d made the wood.The goblins found us quick enough –They must have smelled my blood.
My wife was taken first, she fellBefore my very eyes.“Keep going on!” she yelled at us.“Just don’t let Xmas die!”
My last remaining son and IMade quick across the wood.Before long we could see the wall –And there the giant stood.
I left my son to guard the manAnd braced the giant, brave.When first he reached I slashed his hand,Then lifted up, his face.
I got him in the eye and foundMyself flung hard and fastTowards the hard forbidding ground.I feared I’d die, at last.
My son, he caught me – broke my fall!We made haste to the wall.He boosted me up first, and thenHe lifted up the man as well.
I reached my hand back down to him,But he shook me off, and said:“Someone must stand guard, now go.Your road is hard ahead.”
I tried to argue, pull him up.He said in short reply:“The world won’t miss a man like me,But don’t let Xmas die!”
I bore the man down to the ground,And bid my son goodbye.We set off then across the plains,On foot, the man and I.
We walked along for weeks and weeks,Cold and sad and tired.‘Til finally we could see our town,With all its welcoming fires.
We made our way into your inn,And now I’ve told my tale.Please bring my friend your warmest food,And, too, your strongest ale.
I told no lies: this elder manIs Xmas, sitting here.Take good care of him, for me –The price we’ve paid was dear.
And from that night on forward,The townsfolk all and each,Would meet on every Xmas EveTo sing and laugh and preach.They’d tell about the family,The brave ones who had died,The father, mother, sons – all three,
To bring Xmas back alive.

28 Xmas Stories, 24: "Stay here and let you all get killed?"

We Went Off All A’Riding (A Xmas Epic Poem, Part 2.)________________________________________________
We traveled first cross wind-swept plainsWith icy winds a’ blow’n.Ten cold days we rode our steeds,Never stoppin’, never knowin’
That on t’other side there stoodA vast forbidding wall.In the dark it came up suddenly –And over us threw a pall.
Twice again a man’s height stood This  barrier before us;Atop it glistened sharpened spikesBeyond it loomed a forest.
My sons lassoed the spikes right quick,And after climbing up they stoodAtop that wall, from whence they sawInto the dark’ning wood.
“There’s frightful beasts beside the trees,”My eldest shouted down.The moment next he disappearedSo quick! Without a sound.
We heard the awful gnashing As I drew myself up there.While both my other boys drew swordsI peered into the glowering air.
We couldn’t see my eldest son,We couldn’t hear his cries.“Stay there!” I told my wife, but heardHer snorting, with surprise.
“Stay here and let you all get killed?”She grumbled, as she climbed.“I’m coming with, I’ll hear no guff,”She stood tall by my side.
We had to leave the horses there,As we passed into the wood.We crept along a brambled path,Led by a trail of blood.
In a clearing not far from the wall,Lay —alive! – my eldest son.A band of goblins held him down,While their rancid king had fun
Tormenting him, and torturing, too.We didn’t waste a breathBut charged into the clearing To fight them to the death.
They scattered quickly ‘fore our ire,We felt ourselves well met—‘Til below our feet the ground did shake.We wondered what was next.
Mere moments later we beheldA giant with three heads!He reached down, tried to grab us allBut missed us as we fled.
We scrambled under brush and branch,We darted through the trees,Feeling thorns tear at our sides,And roots lunge at our knees.
The giant tromped behind us stillAnd kept us in his sightsTill my wife beheld a cave of iceWhere we thought we could alight.
We ducked into the tiny hole‘Twas lined with spears of ice,Then once inside began to slideIt wasn’t but a thrice
Before we’d sped our way down deepInto the belly of the world,Where all was dark and cold and still...Until the walls unfurled
Into a horde of icy wingsAnd fangs like glitt’ry spikesLike bats they were, but so much worse!They froze us with their bites,
They beat us with their icy wings,Our limbs their gleaming talons tore They dove upon us, bore us downAs we tried to flee once more.
‘Twas no escape, we had to fight.In a circle, side by sideMy family stood, their swords held highBrave against that fearsome tide.
The ice-bats fell upon us then,I felt them gnaw my bones,I saw my sons fall under wings,My wife stood off alone.
One by one we fell, we failed.Our quest was at an end.My last glimpse then before the dark
Was of a limping, bone-thin man.

28 Xmas Stories, 23: "Xmas up and disappeared."

We Went Off All A’Riding (A Xmas Epic Poem, Part 1.)________________________________________________

We went off all a’riding,My wife, my sons, and me.We set out to find Xmas –Which for years had not been seen.
It used to be that Xmas-timeCame reg’lar, once per year.But then, that one DecemberXmas up and disappeared.
We all had done our trees up,Got our Xmas baking done.We’d finished all our shopping,Then Xmas… didn’t come.
The children noticed first, of course,But soon e’now we allFelt that missing Xmas tearOur spirits wall to wall.
We sat amidst the splendor Of our now-cold Xmas feasts.We tried to still our trembling hands –And hearts inside our breasts.
Xmas never came that yearNor next year, or the next.A score of years DecemberHas now left us all perplexed.
By then there were but few of usWho still remembered Yule,Who still put up a Xmas tree.The rest just called us fools.
But never lost our faith, did we,As each new winter set.We’d go through all the motions,Lest the whole wide world forget.
Give up the Xmas caroling,The stockings care’fly hung?Let go the Xmas pudding?Then all would be undone.
With each new winter colder,With each day darker still,We’d fight to keep the dream alive.We’d battle ‘gainst the chill.
Finally our poor dismal livesWe couldn’t bear no more.“We must do something now!” we criedAnd so our group set forth.
That’s why we went a’riding,My wife, my sons, and me.Do you wonder what we found?What strange things we did see?
I’ll tell you all about them friend,Just let me sit a spell.Our journey wasn’t easy, mind,
I fear I am not well.

28 Xmas Stories 22: Their lives are endless quests.

La ville où tout le monde doit aimer toute l'année ____________________ In this town, Xmas tree ornaments are hand-carved, and each ornament is a likeness of someone in the town. Each person in town who is old enough to do this has his or her own Xmas tree, and carves the ornaments for that tree by themselves. Each and every person the ornament-carver cares about has an ornament carved in their honor and hung on the person’s tree. The likenesses are remarkable: the townspeople, one and all, are very skilled at this after so many generations.
But what is more astonishing than all that is why they do this: these tiny icons of their loved ones are created and put up because the more trees one’s image is on, the more powerful the Xmas magic is for that person, and hence the more of their wishes will be granted come Xmas morning. Getting an ornament hung for you on someone else’s tree increases the odds that all your Xmas wishes will be granted.
Because of this oddity the people of the town are both very social and unfailingly nice to each other. They hold doors open, help the neighbors with yardwork, volunteer for charity fundraisers. They offer help to those who need it, compliment each other, never argue. They share what they have and  in general everyone treats everyone else as though each were royalty.
Every person, man and woman and boy and girl, too, tries to make as many new friends as he or she can throughout the year. Their lives are endless quests to be as nice as humanly possible to as many people as can be.
It seems as though all this niceness, being primarily motivated by the desire to have bigger and more spectacular Xmas wishes granted, would start to wear on a person after a while, would seem fake. But the wishes don’t work that way: fake goodwill towards other townspeople garners one nothing, so the feeling is genuine.

And anyway, even if the behavior was fake it’s still a pretty good way to live. 

28 Xmas Stories 21: Ain't no other way.

Rudolph The Regular-Nosed Reindeer Falls In Love On Xmas Eve, 3:_______________________“… he said it was magic,” Rudolph muttered to himself. Or so he thought. The woman stopped looking at the envelope and the streetlight and the snow and the general scene, and looked at him.
“What’s that now?” she said.
“Nothing,” Rudolph said. “I just… nothing.”
“That’s good, because it sounded like you said someone said something was magic,” the woman said, turning back to the envelope, “Which means that you would be crazy.” She started forward a bit, as the envelope got caught in a gust of wind and blew across the street.  “Well, come on,” she said to him.  “I’ll help you get it.”
They both darted into the street and across it. The envelope was lying on the sidewalk, a little damp, near the stoop of a building. The woman reached down and grabbed it before Rudolph could.  She read the back of the envelope:
Seriously Do Not Open Until Xmas Eve Or The Magic Won’t WorkThen looked up at him. “So…”
Rudolph shrugged, reached for the envelope.  “It’s a friend. He’s got a weird sense of humor.” Rudolph didn’t know if Chad had a weird or a regular or any sense of humor. He barely knew Chad. But what was he supposed to say? He was the one chasing after a … magic envelope. There was just too much to explain.
She started to turn the envelope over, and Rudolph made a more concerted effort to get it before she could read that side, too. Just as he grabbed the envelope, a man’s voice shouted:“HEY!”
The woman looked up, startled. Rudolph did, too.  Down on the end of the street, on the opposite side where they’d just come from, was Chad, next to a woman Rudolph didn’t recognize.
“Oh no,” the woman said.
“What?” Rudolph asked.
The woman took off running just as Chad and his companion started sprinting towards them.
Rudolph looked at Chad coming towards him, and the woman running away from him, and then for some reason he looked down at the envelope.
Then he took off running after the woman, as fast as he could.
The snow was making the sidewalk slippery already and when he got to the corner, about a half-block ahead of Chad and the other woman, Rudolph skidded a bit as he tried to slow down. He bumped into several people who yelled at him to watch where he was going, not drink so much next time, have a merry Xmas too buddy, as Rudolph looked around for the woman.  He spotted her about halfway through the intersection, weaving her way at a near jog between taxis and car service cars escorting people to and from holiday parties and department stores.
“Wait!” he yelled. He looked back. Chad was coming up fast, looking grim.  Rudolph leaped into the street, right behind a bus that was pulling out into traffic. Two cabs swerved around the bus and a bike messenger wavered crazily as Rudolph half-ran, half-walked across the street, trying to keep his eyes on the woman and the traffic, and wondering how close Chad was behind them.
He made it across, and the woman was already halfway up the next block, making her way through the thronging people, her silhouette barely glimpsed in the flares of red and green light from shop windows.  Behind Rudolph Chad and the woman were halfway across the four lanes of traffic, horns honking now at the people crossing against the light.  Rudolph again started running after the woman, his shoes skidding more now on the snow.He made it to the next corner, but their pursuers were gaining on him. He had lost the woman, and looked wildly around the intersection.  Traffic lights, cars, busses, a limousine, a giant group of college-aged kids, behind him Chad only 20 feet back.  Rudolph took a guess, turned right and ran as fast as he could.
He’d gone only five feet when a hand reached out and grabbed at him. He was nearly yanked off his feet as the grip on his arm tightened. Rudolph was spun around and felt himself lifted bodily off the ground by his elbows, and was then looking up at the face of a large bald man with a goatee, wearing an eye patch. He put Rudolph down and nodded to his right. Rudolph looked and saw a barber’s pole and a small door in the building down three flights of stairs. The large bald man nudged him and turned around, and Rudolph took the hint. He skittered down the stairs and threw the door open.
Inside were three old-fashioned barber chairs and a short man bent over a broom. He wasn’t sweeping. He was just resting on it. He looked up at Rudolph, and shook his head.
“You look a wreck,” he said. He tsktsktsked Rudolph and put the broom off to the counter. 
“But no time to worry about that. I expect you’ll be wanting the door.”
The door? Rudolph thought.
“The door?” Rudolph stammered.
“The door,” the man said, with a matter-of-fact sigh.  “Go on in,” he pointed towards the back wall, where a small door stood slightly ajar.
Rudolph looked back up at the door he’d come through, then at the door the man indicated. 
“I…” he said.
“Go on,” the man said. “Ain’t no other way,” he added.
“No other way… what?” Rudolph asked.
“Look, you seemed in a hurry. You think my son can hold them off forever?” the man said.
“Son?” Rudolph said.
“Go on now,” the man said. “And mind the drop.” Rudolph felt himself pushed by the man’s wrinkled but insistent hands. The door was pulled open and he was ushered in. It was shut behind him and he stood there, eyes adjusting to the gloom.
There was a shape across from him. He squinted. It was a person-sized shape. When it moved he realized it was a person and nearly yelped in surprise but before he had even processed this all, the shape said:

“I hope at least you have your envelope.” _____________________________________________________

28 Hours Until I See "The Force Awakens!"

If I have to be sitting up at 3:29 a.m. with Mr F (who is unable to sleep and thus makes other people unable to sleep) at least I've got this Bad Lip Reading of Star Wars to watch over and over:



PS Here's Mr F

28 Xmas Stories, 20: This Story Is About...

This Story Is About A Guy Telling You The World’s Shortest Xmas Story.____________________________

Hope you enjoyed it.

28 Xmas Stories, 19: "Grrrrr!"

American Bear Celebrates Xmas, American-Bear Style___________________________________When American Bear celebrates Xmas, he goes all out, American-Bear Style.  Sure there are the Xmas trees (one in the living room, one in the den, one small one for the bedroom window) lit up like the last days of Rome, or something else that gets lit up.  There is also the house, decorated (some would say garishly, but not to American Bear’s face) with the lights and the other lights and the inflatable Santas on the roof (four of them) and the snowmen (acrylic) in the yard waving (mechanically) at the passers-by, but those are unobjectionable to most people.  Also unobjectionable is American Bear’s habit of overspending on Xmas presents, for his friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, the mailman, the paperboy, the electric utility worker from the county, and sometimes just for random people like the time American Bear handed out gift cards to Starbucks™ at the local diner. 
That’s how American Bear rolls, American Bear would say.
What people tended to get a little upset about was that American Bear also launched fireworks on Xmas Eve, at midnight. Red, white and blue fireworks. Spinning star fireworks. Roman candles and bottle rockets and M-80s and even sometimes some fireworks American Bear bought in Kentucky that are not what you would call “street legal.” American Bear would blow these up, and shine spotlights on his Santas, and put out a Nativity scene that was very nearly life-size. (It was 7/8 size and you’d have to look close to not see that it was life-size) and the Jesus in it was a good American baby, and you know what I mean by good American baby,let’s not make an issue of this. The point is, the Jesus in American Bear’s crèche was Jesus the way American Bear and his (American) neighbors wanted Jesus to look.
The people who were not overly crazy about all this were the people who had small children, and the people who had elderly relatives, and the people who were just plain tired on Xmas Eve after a long holiday season and had just finished putting together (for example) a 775-piece Lego pirate ship so that the kids in the morning could have the thing ready to play with (and anyway they’d just end up putting it together tomorrow morning, honey, so why not get it over with tonight, and here’s some more egg nog with brandy?)
These people felt perhaps it was a bit… much, especially at midnight on Xmas Eve, when kids were trying to sleep and the elderly were trying to reminisce about how much better Xmas had been under Roosevelt, and etc.
Whenever these people thought they might talk to American Bear, ask him to tone it down just a bit, this is more or less what they would imagine:

People: Hey, American Bear, do you think this year perhaps you could not do the fireworks at midnight and the spotlights and all because that’s a bit much?

American Bear: What, don’t you like Jesus and America and Xmas? Because I love those things and want to celebrate them.

People: No we love those things as much as you do American Bear we just…[they would pause, wondering how to continue.]

American Bear: GRRRRR! [and they would imagine him eating them.]

In reality, American Bear thought his neighbors loved these things too. It never occurred to him they did not share his enthusiasm for garish and loud displays at midnight in celebration of the birth of the Lord, and Santa, and The Greatest Country Ever Made™. Had they simply asked him not to make such loud noises and manic disruptions, American Bear would have politely agreed not to do so. He would have found another way to display his incredible religious and democratic (with a small D) feelings. He also probably would have given them a present to show them hey no hard feelings.
That, too, is how American Bear rolls. They just didn’t know it.

PS: To any Romans offended by that comparison, I really wish that there was something else that was lit up which didn’t cause such pain thinking about it. I am sorry for the sacrifices that sometimes literature requires of us all. 

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28 Xmas Stories, 18: #xmasaintperfect

The Robot Who Believed He Could Be A Better Santa Claus Than The Real Santa Claus___________________________________
There was a robot who believed he would be a better Santa Claus than the real Santa Claus, and to prove it, he went up to the North Pole and challenged Santa to a duel.
“What kind of duel?” Santa asked, a bit wary. He’d never been challenged to a duel!
We will each deliver presents tomorrow night, the robot said (I forgot to mention that the robot had arrived at the North Pole on December 23rd) and whichever of us does it better will get the job.
The robot then beeped and blinked some lights in a challenging manner.
Santa didn’t want to accept, but Mrs. Claus and the reindeer were all watching and he didn’t want to look like a wimp, so he really was backed into a corner.
The next night, Xmas Eve, the Robot and Santa each took ½ of the “Nice” list, at random, and each took a magic bag full of presents and set off to deliver their half. 
It wasn’t even a contest. Santa and his reindeer worked as hard as they could, but the robot, what with his rocket feet and mechanical arms and Stealth™ technology finished all his presents in about 1 hour.
When he returned to the North Pole, Santa handed the robot the keys to the cottage, showed him where the reindeer feed was kept and gave him a copy of the elves’ union contract, and then retired.
For the next few Xmases everything was fine, pretty much. Santa relaxed a bit and took up jigsaw puzzles, and entered Scrabble™ tournaments. He even came close to winning a few. He was kind of a hit at the conventions.
The robot, meanwhile, managed to make the elves even faster with his introduction of new technology. The reindeer were free to roam the wilderness again, never having to be harnessed. And presents were more plentiful and arrived well before the dawn on Xmas. The robot re-evaluated the list of Naughty and Nice, finding mathematical theorems to better sort who was naughty or nice, and because he was a robot and could not make mistakes he never needed to check twice. He even processed the milk and cookies left for him without complaining, using the components to 3D print a small Thank You Figurine.
Everyone was more or less content, although truth be told it was sort of more to the or less side of that. Nobody could quite put their finger on what, exactly, they felt was wrong, but if anyone had ever talked about it (nobody did) they’d have agreed that yeah, right, something was wrong, they knew it too, they were just thinking that.
Nobody, as I mentioned, ever talked about it. Except Terry. Terry decided to do something about it. First, he wrote a strongly-worded letter to the editor of the local, twice-a-week paper, the Lake Area Reporter. When this did not have any effect at all, other than Terry’s mom clipped it out of the paper and put it on her refrigerator to show the neighbors when they came over for tea, Terry sat up on Xmas Eve, waiting. When he heard a clatter on the rooftop, he rushed outside, where he saw the robot preparing to slide down his chimney.
“Hey, robot!” he yelled, loudly enough to be heard down the block.
Several neighbors threw open their sashes to see what was the matter.
What is itthe robot asked.
“I don’t think you should do this job,” Terry said. He had had a whole speech planned, the kind of thing Jimmy Stewart might have said, had Jimmy Stewart ever starred in a movie about a robot taking over for Santa Claus (which is a very good idea, if the author of this story says so himself: someone should make this into a movie!) but the speech sort of dropped out of his mind, and Terry wasn’t a speech-ifying kind of guy. So he said what was in his heart. He said:
“I know you’re more efficient at it, and things are generally better in a sort of mechanical, objective sense. But some things aren’t meant to be perfect, or improved. It’s like the time I was making Xmas cookies with my mom.  We were cutting them out with her old cookie cutters, and putting red hots and sprinkles and candied cherries on them, and then frosting them.  Those cookies were a mess, and the whole kitchen was. They didn’t even look like reindeers or snowmen or Santa or nothing like that.
Later that week when we were shopping I saw a bakery with the most perfect cookies you ever saw, and as a surprise for my mom I bought them. I snuck home before her and I threw out all the cookies we’d made, and put out a platter of these beautiful gingerbread men and angels with golden dust on them and Santas with actual rosy cheeks, and when my mom came home she saw that and she started crying.”
Terry paused, and realizing how many people were listening, got a little stage-frightened. But he gathered his courage and went on:
“I never knew why she was crying, and she didn’t tell me. I figured it out the first year you took over this, full time. I realized then that it isn’t how perfect Xmas is. It’s how much feeling is in it. It don’t matter if we get the right present or the tree is a little crooked or the Xmas turkey is a bit dry. What matters is that for at least a little part of our lives, we put our hearts into trying to do something nice for other people, to think about nice things and make the world prettier and generally be in a better mood.
“You’re really good at this, robot. But you don’t handmake the toys and you don’t wink at the kids when they peek at you, and you don’t lick your lips when you eat a sugar cookie some little girl made. You're just cold circuits. You're efficient, but you ain’t got no heart, and I think you oughta give the job back to Santa and let Xmas be a little less perfect and a little more human again.”
With that, the whole neighborhood began applauding, and because a local news crew had shown up and caught the tail end of the speech and a live feed had gone on CNN, people around the world were watching and everyone cheered in their houses and at Xmas parties, and various websites posted clips and the hashtag #Xmasaintperfect began trending.

The robot watched all that and then blinked its lights thoughtfully. 
It made a couple of pensive beeps. 
Then it went back to doing its job and nobody ever said much again because you can’t stop progress, man.
__________________________________________________

28 Xmas Stories, 17: It made me feel like I was really something special.

Five Very Brief Stories________________________

1.        
When I was about eleven years old I liked the comic strip Doonesbury. One year for Xmas I got a collection of Doonesbury comics. It was Doonesbury’s Greatest Hits, and had Zonker Harris in a white suit on the cover.
About two weeks after Xmas, my mom got mad at me for some reason and I argued back at her. As punishment, she built a fire in the fireplace and burnt my Doonsebury’s Greatest Hits book.
*****2.
“So what are the hot toys for kids for Xmas this year?” she asked me and my wife.
“Well, this year we’re getting one of our sons an office chair,” we said back.
*****
3.
One year at Xmas I got a phone call from a doctor telling me that there might be something wrong with my brain. That year, as most years still, I took one of our twins for a ride each night to calm him down before bed. That year, on our ride, you could just barely see an apartment building behind the insurance office on the corner of University Avenue. One of the tenants in the building had decorated his apartment by putting a string of colored lights around the window.
I don’t know why, but every night when I saw that string of colored lights, as I drove around worrying about my brain and listening to Xmas carols with my son, I felt better.I think that tenant must have moved. It’s Xmas now, and we drove by it tonight but the lights weren’t up. I’d like to find out who lived there and say hey thanks for putting up those lights man.
*****
4.
The best Xmas Eve of my life was the one where it snowed too hard for us to drive to Milwaukee and visit my family. So we stayed home and took the kids sledding, and later that night we watched Godzilla before going to bed. I compare every Xmas Eve to that one now and although some of them are pretty fun, none of them measures up to Godzilla Sledding Xmas Eve.
*****
Those were all true stories, and so is this:
5.When we were kids, one year on Xmas Eve we had the whole family over: uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, everyone. Around nine o’clock we were all in the living room waiting to open presents when suddenly Santa Claus walked in. He had his red suit and beard and a bag of presents, and he gave presents to all the kids and asked if we were good that year, and Ho Ho Ho’d and then after he was done he walked out into the hallway and I assume he left the house but we didn’t see him go.

Later on when we were older we of course knew that it must have been someone in a Santa suit but I still remember how awesome it was that Santa came right into our house and talked to us. Even after I realized it wasn’t really Santa there was a part of me that remembered what it felt like to actually have Santa come into our house. Santa. It made me feel like I was really something special, for a long time. If I’m being honest, it still kind of does.

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