It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’rywhere you go;
Take a look in the five-and-ten, glistening once again
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.

Wheat he gave to rich folk, millet to the poor, Broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door; Battle to the tiger, carrion to the kite, And rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night. – kipling

I’m in a mood. This morning I watched the sun come up over the thin white layer of snow that covered the last green blades of summer grass. I miss summer. Summer of course is freedom. Summer is self-determination. You can just walk out the door if you want to. Summer does not tell you to stop and find cold weather clothes. It does not freeze the lakes to stop you from paddling. Winter is oppression. We find ways in life to adapt of course, but we are not natural creatures of short days and bitter cold.

Over the years societies created all sorts of ways to overcome the cloistered life that winter can bring. We created a long string of holidays to get us through. A good plan. Gather together many times over to remind ourselves all that is good in life. From Halloween through Easter we have many dates set aside to gather ourselves together.

These days of course those reasons for gathering are lost on society as a whole. We do our best to keep the human side alive in a battle of consumer politics that invade our every breath. In time we’ve been conditioned to get up early and push and shove our neighbors to save a few dollars on gizmos we don’t need. “thanks-giving” is after all of little importance. Gift buying must press it down. From now until Christmas our retail economy is in life or death mode. If you don’t buy for Christmas we face an apocalypse of. . well, biblical proportions. Get out there and shop. It’s good for you, it’s good for the economy, it’s good for our country. The sad bit is, our economy is depending on it. In this system it becomes imperative that we are manipulated to purchase. Thus the screaming din we face every year. “Doorbuster Deals” become the mantra of the day. Run! Shop! Go! What’s worse to me is how our children are manipulated into feelings of need, that any loving parent would have a hard time not satisfying. Without locking them away from every other child and media outlet, there is little we can do but to feed the monster or seem evil or mean. The holidays are upon us and it’s often hard to separate the ugly from the good. The good bits about family and “peace on earth”, are only traditions after all and hardly reinforced by our modern culture beyond the background music of a box store advertisement. Each year around this time I bounce from the warm joy of decorating a tree and watching Big Crosby to anger at advertising saying dad needs an HDTV. Dad, by the way does NOT need an HDTV. Mom does not need a diamond for that matter. In fact millions of us couldn’t afford an annual Christmas diamond for mom and that certainly does not mean she’s any less loved. For what it’s worth, I am poor by American standards and still I want for nothing.

On top of this pressure we have elections afoot. Long articles in the news express the politicians quandary when faced with a shorter season before the primaries in January. Is a negative ad acceptable on Thanksgiving day? What time can the calls begin again? Will you take a call from Hillary Clinton on Christmas eve? The interesting thing is that between the lines you easily understand that they would ignore all the holidays and continue with business as usual. The only concern they have of course is that the person they want to vote for them may be offended. Funny thing, just knowing that they would do it if they could should be offensive enough. I mean if they don’t care personally about their own families or faith during the holidays, are they the people we want in power? Apparently they are.

I know in the world there are many good people. Yet sometimes their dim light in our weary world grows ever more faint.

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