On the Eve of the Eve.....

The Christmas 2016 purchasing season is winding down rapidly, and the surest sign I've seen yet, aside from the calendar, is the size of the Sunday newspaper I have delivered to the house (or near the house, depending on the carrier's aim). 

For weeks, I feared I was going to have to ask one of the injured reserve professional athletes associated with but never proven to use HGH or steroids to lift and carry the newspaper and then, in all likelihood, I'd read about my escapade in the newspaper or Curt Schilling's comments about it on his blog. Oh, the ignominy.....

This week's papers have been lighter than since Thanksgiving (when the season which had already started around Labor Day stepped it up), and I, for one, am thankful for that. I guess many, like me, have gotten done all the holiday shipping we are going to do.The Amazon reindeer are still bringing stuff. I bought festive bags and colored tissue paper with stick-on bows to hold those presents since I badly screwed up the gift-wrapping option when I ordered. I was hoping to avoid the annual 'look! Another gift that Dad wrapped!' chorus of what I'm hoping is light-hearted derision.   Grinches have feelings, too.

(I'm working on a new Christmas carol, to the tune of "Merry Christmas to You"...

'Guys in ski masks pushing shopping carts
From all points West, North, South, and East. 
Folks stand in line for a very long time
To see if they can spend the least.' 
No one from Tin Pan Alley called to ask me about an option-imagine my surprise. 

I wish I had a large empty box to store some of the feelings of harmony and accommodation that are so prevalent this time of year for those times in the coming year when we could really use them and won't have them. 

It was a rough Presidential election and I find it amazing to look back to the days of the founding of the Republic and see all the people who were qualified to be President, and who weren't, and realize how quickly we moved from a free exchange of ideas and positions to a demolition derby and some variant of Lord of the Flies. 

Suspect the first order of business for the next Secretary of Education will be the banning of history as a subject of study. When you don't think about it, that makes a yuuuge amount of sense.
-bill kenny