Christmas Just Blew Into Town
And everything is now different
Up until yesterday no one in my little town seemed to be in a Christmas mood. Sure, the street decorations are up but since Thanksgiving up until yesterday we have been experiencing unseasonably warm shorts weather. It is difficult to get into a Christmas mood in the absence of cold.
I don’t know what the hell those people in the Southern Hemisphere do. Christmas in the middle of summer? Seriously?
But yesterday a brutal and unrelenting wind came out of the north. Temperatures dropped by around 40 degrees (Fahrenheit). Those fools caught outside in shorts got in the Christmas spirit very quickly.
A few days ago I had gone in a local store to chat with the proprietor. “It’s been so dead!” he lamented. “The Christmas shopping season is officially here and usually it’s starting to get really busy now but not this year. Where is everyone?”
I wanted to say, They’re at home on their couch glued to their smartphones, but I didn’t. I did not want to rub it in. Instead, without using the term, Retail Apocalypse, I replied, “Oh, it’s just the weather. Just wait, as soon as it turns cold the shoppers will come flooding in.” I try to be uplifting and hopeful.
The fool that I am, I was out and about in yesterday’s scrotum-shriveling arctic windstorm. Whether the numbingly frigid wind was to my back or I was walking into it, it simply was not pleasant. Some would call it exhilarating. I wouldn’t.
I stopped at that same store to once again chat with the proprietor but when I got into the warm store I realized that I would not be able to chat because the store was jam-packed with people. The aisles were so full of shoppers there was almost no room to walk. It would have taken me half an hour just to get over to the side of the store where he was. I did manage to catch his eye and I smiled. He smiled back and gave me the thumbs-up hand gesture.
So Christmas finally arrived yesterday in an arctic blast of enthusiasm. The collective Christmas spirit was suddenly palpable. It’s amazing how slow people can get when it’s warm and how their activities quicken when it gets cold. People are like the opposite of bugs. Most people, anyway.
It’s been many years since I have celebrated Christmas. That doesn’t keep me from writing about it, though. Here are some of my Christmas stories:
