'Tis the Season...

The newspaper is filled with summaries of the year's events--newsmakers, notables, notorious crimes. We're entering an election year, so naturally there are lots of pious political predictions. In our community there is great interest in a couple of bowl games, so there are plenty of pigskin prognostications, too.

Most of these features bore me. I don't need to be reminded of serial murders, the misdeeds of area politicians, or the fact that my alma mater is in a non-BCS bowl.

Most of these things are an intrusion on my holiday serenity. I want to keep the Christmas season through Epiphany, hanging on to the birth of Christ and His promise of peace. I also want to ignore all party invitations for the night of December 31st and I loathe the idea of New Years resolutions, but that's another story. For now, my Christmas naughty and nice list. Ho Ho Ho and Merry Merry!

Naughty

• Radio stations that start playing Christmas music* on Halloween, then stop on Christmas night *notably "Deck the Halls" by Mannhein Steamroller and Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby"



• Tacky, strobing Christmas displays



• Cutesy holiday letters supposedly penned by preschoolers



• Fruitcake



• Cats who pee under the Christmas Tree



• Too many nights in a row of family obligations



• People who cut in line (likely the same people who steal the parking place you've been patiently waiting for with your signal on while the current parker loads up her packages)



• Cheesy, made-for-TV Christmas movies with sappy moral platitudes starring soap opera actors



• Scrooges & Grinches



• Overwrought children



• General ingratitude
  

Nice

• Having the kids home



• John playing Christmas carols on the piano



• Handwritten greetings from old friends



• Candles in the windows of colonial homes



• Fragrant, balsam wreaths from L.L. Bean



• A real fire in the fireplace



• Champagne



• Cats playing with Christmas ribbon



• Thymes' Frasier Fir candle



• Candy Canes & Gingerbread men



• Staying up late to watch It's a Wonderful Life (again!), then sleeping in on Christmas morning

Christmas blessings from Mimsy Claus!

"I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year." --Charles Dickens