December 8, 2008

• Why postpone the joy?

   

  Christmas is a time for sharing.  That’s where the joy is:  in the giving and sharing, certainly not in the shopping.  For me, anyhow, there is little joy, at any time, in shopping.  Occasionally, I feel a burst of pleasure at finding an unexpectedly low price on a staple such as the one on Super Lucky Elephant jasmine rice from Thailand at Three Bears last month.  Any time I find grapeseed oil at a reasonable price in the regular cooking oil section and don’t need to go to the gourmet section and pay exorbitantly for it, that is cause for joy.  Other than for groceries, I seldom shop at all.  Going into debt to keep eating tends to discourage shopping in general.

  When I was a kid, during December each year, newspapers reminded readers of how many shopping days were left until Christmas.  Shopping days at the time came six to the week, and for the after-Christmas sales the countdown would begin again with a number close to 300.  My mother decried the practice, which seems to imply that it had been an innovation coming after her own childhood.  I couldn’t see why she was such a curmudgeon about it.  I had two Christmas lists:  one listing things I wanted for myself, and another of people for whom I wanted to buy gifts.  I loved shopping and window shopping.

  Each year I would save some money from my allowance to buy gifts.  It was never enough, so I depended on supplemental handouts.  Unless an aunt or uncle sent xmas cash early, the money for everything came from my mother, whose finances were not quite as tight as mine are now, but were tight enough that I knew I would not get everything on my list and I would have to do some careful shopping to find appropriate and affordable gifts for everyone on my list.  I approached the task with enthusiasm, and genuinely enjoyed the seasonal crowds, decorations, and background music in the shops.

  That was then.  This is now.  I haven’t sent Christmas cards in so long that I have been taken off nearly everyone’s lists.  The company that collects our garbage sent me this one:

  

   

  …and the author/artist of Schlock Mercenary sent this one to Doug:

   

  Sharing them with you gives me a warm feeling that has been missing from my Christmas since Greyfox and I decided that family gift giving was too fraught with resentment, disappointment and pathos.  I don’t think I’ll wait this year until just twelve days before xmas to start my upside down and backwards holiday celebration.

  Some of you may recall that my favorite Christmas poem is one by Robert Service, the Scots-Gaelic-speaking (plus French, Italian and English) English-born Canadian poet that Alaska would like to claim as its own.  I will repost that poem sometime between now and xmas, but for now I’ll joyfully share with you another of Service’s poems that I love.

       The Men That Don’t Fit In

      There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
          A race that can’t stay still;
      So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
          And they roam the world at will.
      They range the field and they rove the flood,
          And they climb the mountain’s crest;
      Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
          And they don’t know how to rest.

      If they just went straight they might go far;
          They are strong and brave and true;
      But they’re always tired of the things that are,
          And they want the strange and new.
      They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
          What a deep mark I would make!”
      So they chop and change, and each fresh move
          Is only a fresh mistake.

      And each forgets, as he strips and runs
          With a brilliant, fitful pace,
      It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
          Who win in the lifelong race.
      And each forgets that his youth has fled,
          Forgets that his prime is past,
      Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
          In the glare of the truth at last.

      He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
          He has just done things by half.
      Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
          And now is the time to laugh.
      Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
          He was never meant to win;
      He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
          He’s a man who won’t fit in.

  It was hard settling on just one out of his many works.  I’ll probably drop in a few more in coming days.

  Recently, I posted a shot through the window of my lighted ivy plant “Christmas tree.”  Below is a photo of it from an indoor perspective beside the woodstove, followed by a picture of a few of the things that will be missing from my “tree” to keep them from being damaged by, and in turn damaging, the cats:.
   

   

   

  Happy-happy-joy-joy.
  

  • 3:52 pm
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