B365V3,58 - Christmas conundrums

I came ill prepared today.  I have been meaning to bang out a Christmas blog, and some of thoughts started ruminating in my cranium about which way I wanted to go.  Finally I had enough disconnected ideas in my head that I thought I might be able to put together a blog entry of sorts but when I went to leave work I decided I would put $20 in the instant ticket machine, only to win $100.  Winning isn't bad, just ask Charlie Sheen, but winning meant I decided to treat myself to dinner at the venerable Squirrel Cage, which leaves me blogging on my tablet.  My tablet is good for lots of things, blogging however is not one of them.

Anyway, since this is supposed to be Christmas themed, I should start by saying Merry Christmas to all of my blog readers (all two of you).  Cant say as I am amped up for the holiday, I even cut my shopping way back this year.  This year it just feels like another day on the calendar.

Not that I have ever bought into the Christian mythos of the holiday, I am content to celebrate the fat man in the red suit aspect of it all.  The virgin birth story makes no sense to me as the son of a serial philanderer, it is more like an excuse a drunkard makes when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy.  To me it boils down to either Mary was an adulterer to Joseph, which would violate one of the "Rules of 10" according to the book of Christian mythology, or if she did not consent, then God raped her.  At least by my definition of rape, where a person puts something inside a woman without their consent.  Really, what is the other option, some miracle nonsense where she doesn't have sex but yet is with child, as the oldsters describe it.  All I know from the birds and the bees talk leads me to believe that is highly unlikely.  If it is correct, than how could we do anything, lest it be one miracle away of being life. "Hey Joe, go mix us some concrete for this project we are working on."  "Sorry, cant do it, it may be a baby some day."  Like I said, nonsense.

So I don't by into the biblical happenings for the holiday, I still used to be able to buy into the fact that it was one of just a couple of times a year where my family was always under one roof, or at least a significant portion of said family.  But that was back in the day where the family was much smaller and my grandparents were still alive.  Now many of the grandkids from those days have their own families and children and everything has dissolved into smaller family units.    There is no big family dinner to speak of, where the kids would eat the least amount possible while still feigning an interest in food, before they would scurry off to the tree and implore the adults to hurry up because presents and all that jazz.

If that were not enough of me being a Debbie Downer about the holiday, it also marks the anniversary of my brother's suicide, 26 years now if my memory hasn't failed me yet.  While he and I were not that close, one of the remnants of two children who picked sides in their parent's divorce,  it isn't all that hard to remember back to the sound of my mother's guttural wailing Christmas morning on finding out Mike had hung himself.

Lastly there is my mother's health, which also puts a kibosh on being all celebratory.  Since her last stroke about a year and a half ago, her mind continues to play tricks on her.  She misremembers lots of things, including people who are alive, versus those that are dead (included in that package are my brother and grandparents, who have all passed on as evidenced with the above scribblings) and other things that she completely forgets, including dates, so she could be completely unaware it is even Christmas.  That too, is a far cry from the way things used to be.  As a kid, my Christmas miracle had nothing to do with virgin births and more to do with how did my mom go about making Christmas as amazing as she did while knowing how little money we had.  Not that  I am all about "gimme, gimme, gimme" but it would be nice to celebrate a holiday with someone who is aware a holiday is taking place.

This would have been the year to return somewhat to form too, Christmas is on a Sunday, which is usually my day off, so it would have been nice to relive all of those old memories again, but some things you can only take with you in your mind, so I volunteered to work for a co worker, perhaps they will make unforgettable memories this holiday instead.  I will go and do things where I can do the most good.

Not that working is all bad, it was just a few years ago and a few hundred blog entries ago, where I got the proverbial kick in the teeth about how entitled I am.  I was working middle shift at the store, which for us is 3 pm to 11 pm, sort of caught up in my own self pity, when an older lady came in (I would say she was 60ish for those stuck on the details)  and she proceeded to buy a deli side from our open air cooler, it was a side of potato salad if memory serves me.  She bought it and maybe one or two other things, and after ringing her up, I decided to go out for a cigarette.  So I go outside, and the same lady was standing there, eating her potato salad, using our window ledge as a table of sorts, and it hit me, for all of my bitching and moaning, I am not that bad off.  I am working in a business with a roof over my head, I will go home and while I might not exchange gifts on the 25 th of December, it will happen in its own due time.  I will go home to a warm apartment, with a roof over my head and eat a warm meal, not being stuck outside eating potato salad out if a plastic container.  All and all, I don't have it that bad, and despite all of the above paragraphs above that come off as whining I am sure, I still don't have it that bad.