It was, perhaps, the meanest act I’d ever committed. Certainly the most inconsiderate. But I was only ten-years-old, so what did I know?
My father loved to build miniature settings. He had constructed an elaborate village around his HO scale train set in our attic. It included a train station, post office, church, store, and a few homes. There were painted roads with small cars and trucks and tiny little people. It was fully landscaped with trees and shrubs, hills, and a creek. A true work of art.
For Christmas one year, he decided to build a little fairy village on our patio for my younger sister. He constructed it from twigs, straw, branches, and stones. He built a tiny church, shed, fire pit, table, and bench. It was exquisite.
He finished it just in time for Christmas and, when Christmas morning arrived, my sister and I eagerly opened our presents. My favorite was a 20-inch tall Godzilla monster doll.
Dad escorted us out to our back patio and unveiled the fairy village. My sister squealed in delight. I, with Godzilla in hand, proceeded to destroy the tiny village by stomping all around, making horrible monster noises, just like the movie.
(202 words)
Written for this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt. Image credit: Eric Wiklund.
Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner? Yet again.
Ah yes, Christmas, the holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus, is a jolly and joyous holiday to Christians.
Well, I, for one, am not so jolly. Okay, yes, I know. I’m a grinch. I admit it. But at the same time, I’m enough of a pragmatist to recognize that our nation, while not a “Christian Nation,” as some conservatives suggest, is a nation that is overwhelmingly Christian.
And yet, year-after-year, there are those — from virtually everyone on Fox News to President Trump — insisting that American Christians are being persecuted and that there is a “War on Christmas.” Trump has even suggested that, now that he’s president, Americans are once again permitted to say “Merry Christmas.” Wait! Did Americans ever stop saying that?
Seriously, do most Christians really believe that the small sliver of the American population comprised of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians have somehow stolen Christmas?
I look around and wonder how anyone can come to that conclusion. I hear continuous, unavoidable Christmas music; it’s virtually nonstop. I see Christmas shows and specials on TV, Christmas movies in theaters, Christmas musicals and plays on live stage.
Flyers and advertisements for Christmas sales add significant heft to the newspapers I stuff into my recycling bin each week. The bulk of TV commercials at this time of year are all about the Christmas gifts you absolutely must buy. My mailbox is stuffed with Christmas catalogs.
I see formerly vacant lots filled with Christmas trees and wreaths that are selling briskly. I see homes, condos, and apartments throughout the city decked out with colorful, blinking lights and fully adorned Christmas trees in the windows. I see nativity scenes on public squares and common areas around city and on town hall lawns throughout the area.
I see grown men wearing red suits, fake beards, and pillows stuffed under their belts, little kids sitting on their laps in stores and malls. At any other time of the year, these men would be arrested.
Santa copping a feel (or is that Roy Moore dressed as Santa?)
But at Christmastime, there are long lines of parents, with their kids in tow, eager to put their little darlings onto the lap of some otherwise unemployable, probably drunk old man wearing a phony beard and dressed in a strange costume promising to bring them all kinds of gifts that their parents can’t really afford.
Can someone please explain to me how Christmas is being stolen?
Well, maybe the “Christmas spirit” has, in fact, been usurped by crass commercialism. Christmas has become less a religious holiday than a two-month long shopping spree.
Instead of the jolly holiday bringing out the best in people, it seems that this season of good will and joy instead brings out the worst in many. Me included.
This was an easy one for me, a diehard Joni Mitchell fan. The song, “Help Me,” is from her classic 1974 album, Court and Spark. It is a love song written, produced, and performed by Joni Mitchell, and was recorded with jazz band Tom Scott’s L.A. Express as the backup band. “Help Me” was released on the Asylum label as a single and it was Mitchell’s biggest hit, peaking at #7 in June 1974 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also her only single to reach the top 10.
In her song, Mitchell sings about a guy she’s falling in love with while at the same time knowing the relationship is doomed, as he is “a rambler and a gambler” who loves his freedom. She never revealed the identity of this mystery man, but the speculation is that he could have been either Jackson Browne or Glenn Frey, both of whom she dated in the early ’70s. That said, I have no idea who the lady with the hole in her stocking might be.
Here are the lyrics.
Help me
I think I’m falling
In love again
When I get that crazy feeling, I know
I’m in trouble again
I’m in trouble
‘Cause you’re a rambler and a gambler
And a sweet-taIking-ladies man
And you love your lovin’
But not like you love your freedom
Help me
I think I’m falling
In love too fast
It’s got me hoping for the future
And worrying about the past
‘Cause I’ve seen some hot hot blazes
Come down to smoke and ash
We love our lovin’
But not like we love our freedom
Didn’t it feel good
We were sitting there talking
Or lying there not talking
Didn’t it feel good
You dance with the lady
With the hole in her stocking
Didn’t it feel good
Didn’t it feel good
Help me
I think I’m falling
In love with you
Are you going to let me go there by myself
That’s such a lonely thing to do
Both of us flirting around
Flirting and flirting
Hurting too
We love our lovin’
But not like we love our freedom
It was, perhaps, the meanest act I’d ever committed. Certainly the most inconsiderate. But I was only ten-years-old, so what did I know?
Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner? Yet again.
This, That, and the Other 