Winter Greetings and Happy New Year. HNY. Happy New York. A few days ago at my last post I thought I would post every day for the twelve days...but of course that dinna happen. I was busy staring into the abyss. Wallowing in self pity.......Wafting between daydreams and actual sleep 24-7. That post dealt with the day of and days after Xmas. But I'm not done with the thread yet. Right now on New Years Eve I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas! It's still Christmas while the Magi are enroute! It's still Xmas and I want to send some late xmas cards. I'm not sure why. I never send Xmas cards. But all the stores have already gotten rid of Xmas cards and the Valentines are up. What happened to all the Xmas stuff being at least 50% off? The day after Xmas is Boxing Day in the U.K. Oddly I need an unboxing day. We have lots of empty boxes as I am sure you do to. We have a recycle cart can so I cut up the boxes and they pick up . I was way behind on getting the boxes gone. On Boxing Day I got to work but it's not done. The day after Xmas is also The Feast of St. Stephen. "He who would help the poor shall yourself find blessing" So today is New Years Eve. The 7th day of Xmas with 7 swans representing 7 days of Creation. January 6 is the 12th day of Xmas. Twelfth Night. Jan. 6 . Wait. Jan. 6 Hmm sounds familiar? Twelve Drummers represents 12 points of doctrine in the apostle's creed. " Holy Catholic Church, Forgiveness of sins, Life everlasting, etc. I took that oath when I was about 13 yr. old. OK all this stuff is after Xmas day. Now let me opine on the lead up to Xmas day. The lead up is "Advent''. The 4 Sundays before Xmas. Fasting at different levels. Special Sunday worships. Traditions, etc. But the Advent is really no fun leading up to Xmas. Advent Calanders have come back in style. Over the years we have supplanted Advent with a huge commercial endeavor that lasts from Halloween through Thanksgiving to Xmas and ending on Dec. 26. It's a situation where there is a rat race to find gifts, spend money we don't have, look forward to Yuletide, and dread it at the same time! Retailers claim that they make most of their profit in the last two months of the year. So Advent is way more important to our culture than the Twelve Days after.
I've always pushed back against the gift exchange except for children and adults that act like children. There's a really cool song pushing back a bit on Xmas Goes back to maybe 50's or 60's. The guy that wrote it, Sammy Cohn, was so prolific that after a thriving career in tin pan alley in NY city he wound up in Hollywood and wrote a bunch of the theme songs to sit coms etc. He was so successful that there is an award in the music industry named after him "The Sammy". I'll just give you a few lines of my favorite Xmas song- think bluesy beat: "The jingle bells are jinglin', the streets are white with snow, the happy crowds are mingling, but there's no one that I know, you'll know the way I'm feelin', when you love and you lose....I guess I got the Xmas blues. May all your days be merry....your season full of cheer--but 'till its February I'll just go and disappear I hope that Santa brought you some stars for your shoes, but santa only brought me the blues..........those brightly packaged tinsel covered Chris- mas-blues! I love you readers. Stay safe. Happy New Year and Merry Still Xmas!
LLITTY......... ::::::+::::::
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