Greetings of the Season from ...   

One Busy Guy   

It is certainly easy to understand why people say that Christmas is for kids. Children have yet to gain that all important jaded quality needed to get most adults through the day!

The notion of a chubby albeit jolly sleuth watching you all the days of the year? Annually crossing the skies in a sleigh drawn by eight tiny yet surprisingly adroit flying ungulates? ( Except in Hawaii where Santa arrives by taxi ... implying a red nosed cabbie at the wheel. )

A man who abandons his good wife at the holiday no less. Visiting in a single night all those children who made it onto the 'good list'. Distributing toys created in the privacy of a solitary fortress... and by mythical Elvin workers?

Whose delivery technique not only involves entering homes through that increasingly absent chimney, but who will make no effort without the proffered snack of dairy and pastry?

And who else could employ a method of transportation known only as 'laying a finger aside of his nose and giving a nod'? 


We immerse our kids in these fanciful, endearing tales all the years of their youth.  

When I was small, my folks would have all their kids write letters to Santa. Upon completion thereof we were escorted directly to our coal burning furnace in the creepy, scary basement. And amidst the dampness and the cob webs and the singular dangling bulb, we promptly tossed our letters into the flame. These hard won compositions had the life expectancy of a movie ticket stub! Apparently, our parents sensed that the only way Santa would ever actually read our mail was if the letters were to arrive in some disembodied molecular state akin to that of smoke and ash! Who would ever have guessed?

We have all heard stories of the child who receives a gift and chooses instead to entertain themselves with the box in which it came. I am certainly one. What fun is a board game and no one to share it? How long can you watch the marvelous little toy roll it's eyes, or run in circles, or flip in place? The most automatic toys have less interaction and so for me there's less intrigue. I think that's what makes empty boxes so cool... imagination can take you so very many more places.

I can well remember hiding out under the dining room table with nothing more than a spinning top. When primed and turning it made a kind of odd, rather other worldly hum ... it sure sounded like Star Ship turbines to me! Add to that an old pie tin with a few graham crackers to heat over the hot air vents and you were off camping on some interplanetary expedition! With luck you could circle the moon, have a quick meal, polish up your ship and still be home in time for Disney! 

             

 Be certain to pack your holiday with the most interesting, diverting and imaginative entertainments to be found. Christmas may only come annually but it sure starts earlier every year. Adding depth to the vision and playfulness to the spirit can help maintain this outlook all the year.

Wishing you joy and happiness in this holiday season!

                                        Steve