Not a Literal Chestnut Roasting

It takes forever to get here, Christmas I mean, and then in one swift night,  it's gone. Heute ist Zweite Weihnachten, today is Second Christmas, unless you work in a mall anywhere in this great nation of ours in which case, you should wish you were in Great Britain or Canada where this is Boxing Day which could cause any MMA fans in your house to become  excited except those who follow MMA get excited about everything. That, too, shall pass. 

Speaking of which, nearly, one of the nice things about Christmas Passed, at least in my area, is newspapers return to regular size and heft. From shortly after Halloween through last Sunday our newspapers were crammed with all manner of fliers and advertising.

I've never appreciated all the filling. I'm willing (in theory), to pay more money for a newspaper, especially the Sunday paper, that doesn't have all of that hullaballoo caneck caneck (sorry Rik) but I'm not sure if confronted with that actual proposition I'd be willing to dig a little deeper into my pocket.

And if we're doing Truth or Dare I should admit that aside for dinosaurs like me, the Sunday newspaper isn't especially relevant to anyone. Too bad. Not everything new is better and not everything old can be tossed aside (said the man whose 65th birthday is in the mirror). 

I can recall Sunday mornings on the way home in Dad's Chrysler station wagon from Mass with a stop at the bakery for fresh rolls and at the corner shop (that always had all of the out of town newspapers decades before the connectivity of the Internet). Even then, I put all the advertising to one side.

And now, I have some peace from those full-page ads from my 'fragrance destination' and from my 'sports headquarters' (I have prosthetic knees, you Dick, what would I play aside from checkers until I pass away?) as I spread the paper out on the kitchen table and work my way through every section (except real estate; I have no use for that part of the paper).

Every media outlet does year-end summaries-the biggest news stories, the most outrageous Hollywood Whatevers, the Year in photos, Greatest Pantomimes, Sports Achievements So Monumental They Eclipse Last Year's Achievements, complete with listings and notes on famous people who died (and there are two or more names where you go 'oh, I forgot about her/him'; and more than that for me where I go 'who?').

I suppose we could spend some time this week, learning songs to celebrate the arrival of the New Year, but that's not really who we are as we prefer complaining about the year as it ends. Besides, why would we want to be The Holiday Hipsters anyway?    
-bill kenny