Happy every holiday

Happy holidays, all readers, whichever holiday you are celebrating, or not celebrating.

I would also like to extend especially positive wishes to those who get very little attention at this time of year: those who choose or, or have to work on these days so many consider special. These are not just nurses and police officers, but also those forced to work because they just cannot afford to take time off.

So take a moment to appreciate the people in the corner store, the drug store, the movie theatre, ski hill, gas station and anywhere else that might be open on your holiday.

I'm not the first to remark on how many cultures have a special celebration at this time of year. Nor am I the first to notice that many have a celebration involving light when the days are shortest (in the northern hemisphere). So there is a lot more about our various celebrations that brings us together than drives us apart. 

So please share these inclusive sentiments, readers. And have a happy, healthy and successful dark season. Unless you're in the southern hemisphere, where it's the bright season.

And share a wish for a good, safe and peaceful new year.

*

Happy Yule

Happy Sadeh

Happy Kwanzaa

Merry Christmas

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Saturnalia

Happy Diwali (a little late)

Happy Eid (a different time every year)

Merry Christmas to all

I wish all a peaceful, healthy and happy Christmas season.

Scott Bury

The Written Word

Drawing by HIKINGARTIST.COM via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons attribution.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/

Merry Christmas, readers! Best of the season to you all. And happy Kwanzaa, best of the Zarathosht Diso, as well as belated happy Yule, Bodhi Day and Hannukah.

Those who've ready this blog know my inclusive attitude toward holiday greetings: we should all celebrate all of them. (More holidays, more food, more festivities — who can argue with that?) And I will not be offended if anyone wishes me a Happy Eid, Passover or Makar Sankranti.

You may not know this, but I'm French-Canadian. One French-Canadian tradition — so traditional that my family wasn't doing it anymore by the time I was born — is exchanging presents on Christmas Eve. 

My seasonal gift to all of you is a story about Christmas, set in the long-ago time of 1991 — when cell phones were rarities, gasoline was 40 cents a litre and times were no simpler, no easier than they are today. 

Below is a sample of the story. The full text is in the tab, "Christmas 1991" at the top of the page.

Enjoy!

 

My Christmas Story for 1991

 

By Scott Bury

Snow spun, spiraled, swirled downward, slowly covering the lawns and avenues, the roofs and pathways of a suburb. In the morning, commuters would curse as they dug their cars out of the drifts and banks, brushed it off their hoods and headlights, then clutch their steering wheels white-knuckled as they slid to work.

But tonight, tonight all was quiet. All the houses were dark. All except one — one window was lit, the curtains flung aside, the light streaming out, illuminating the falling snow as it flickered past the window pane.

Through the window could be seen the head of one man, hard at work: leaning forward, shoulders and back bent over a slanted table. The head was handsome, seen in profile, if tending toward the corpulent. The forward tilt pushed out the beginnings of a double chin. The hair was dark, the nose long and straight, the mouth full and sensitive. 

His name was Andrew, and he was a draftsman. His job was to make an architect’s drawings and an engineer’s proofs into final drawings for the construction crews. Andrew was good at his job, and knew it.

Around him was the darkness and stillness of a sleeping house. If he had listened, had paid attention to the world around him at that moment, he would have heard the small sounds of the night: the intermittent click and hum of the furnace, the rattling of the windows in the winter wind, the rustling from the bed in the room next door as his wife, Lana, turned over, the faint sighing of his five-year-old daughter, Marla, in the other bedroom.

But Andrew was concentrating. He had a deadline to meet on this project, a complete set of plans for a power building at a factory. It was still a week away, counting the day whose morning he was working through, but there was a lot of work to do yet.

An annoying tradition

Today, November 12, I walked into a Shoppers Drug Mart and heard an awful version of “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland” on their background music system. (I suspect that “Muzak” is a trademarked name.)

I love Christmas: the togetherness, the real music. But while stores and malls love to play music to encourage people to buy stuff, their selection is extremely limited. They don’t dare play any overtly religious Christmas carols for fear of offending someone.

So the selection is limited to a small selection of the most awful, cheesy or maudlin songs: “Winter Wonderland,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Silver Bells,” “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” and, worst of all, “Jingle Bell Rock.”
No matter which store or mall you walk into, you’ll hear the same songs. Different versions, different singers, different arrangement, but it’s the same bad songs.

Come on, retailers: give us a break. Don’t subject us to over a month of awful songs played endlessly. How about a little more variety? Or maybe just some silence?