It's an annual thing for me. A lot like the annual physical, where one is weighed, measured, prodded, poked, and sometimes entered. I hate it. Always have. I've tried a variety of solutions, including giving away money, caroling, participating in concerts, going to care centers, serving meals, even tippling a bit. But I come up on empty.
I've tried to analyze it. Could it be the uncertainty that Dad would get home from the daily railroad run on Christmas Eve given the winter storms in days gone by? Was it childhood worry that I'd bought the correct meager gifts for family members? Was it that all relationships with girls but the last one were dead or dying at Christmas and purchasing the final Christmas gift felt like someone offering more mashed potatoes and gravy after you've already eaten the apple pie? Simply no taste for it. Period.
Maybe it's the noxious thought of going to the stores where teaming throngs mill about like cattle searching for a tuft of green grass among the Canadian thistle. And then beller when another cow gets in the way.
Oh well, time to go out and join the cattle...ho, ho, ho. Be sure to avoid the thistle.
I've tried to analyze it. Could it be the uncertainty that Dad would get home from the daily railroad run on Christmas Eve given the winter storms in days gone by? Was it childhood worry that I'd bought the correct meager gifts for family members? Was it that all relationships with girls but the last one were dead or dying at Christmas and purchasing the final Christmas gift felt like someone offering more mashed potatoes and gravy after you've already eaten the apple pie? Simply no taste for it. Period.
Maybe it's the noxious thought of going to the stores where teaming throngs mill about like cattle searching for a tuft of green grass among the Canadian thistle. And then beller when another cow gets in the way.
Oh well, time to go out and join the cattle...ho, ho, ho. Be sure to avoid the thistle.
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