OPINION
Here at the Daily Planet, we publish and print our November issue at the end of October. Even as the soothsayer that I am, I don’t think that anybody can really write about winners and losers in our national elections until, of course, next month. Hopefully. So, consider this the column for the holiday season.
So, you ask what is the holiday season? I hate to break it to you readers but not everyone associates the Christmas holidays with joy and fun. Maybe you remember things you’d rather forget. I believe this is almost like the day I stood up and admitted I had no power over alcohol, some 16-year-old kid telling mom and dad he’s gay, and me proclaiming I hate Christmas. More and more as I grow older.
When I was a little fella I believed in Santa Claus and hope springs eternal. As I’ve said before I was sure that pony was going to be under the tree and, of course, it never was. And then my sister ratted out the whole rotten deceiving thing, I really wasn’t getting squat and at that point it was coming to an end. I think I was 8. Now this gift giving thing, why does it take November and December to make us or inspire us to treat one another with care? The commercial holiday of Christmas really shines alone. The amount of money that gets spent on the most wonderful time of the year, from decking the halls to something I warned everyone about, office parties that now no longer exist, when your boss hands you a drink ticket.
So, beginning right before Halloween the holiday triggers are pulled. Safeguard yourself from all the sadness. And remembering we had a better chance of finding some peace as the Germans and the English coming out of the trenches Christmas Eve of 1914, and standing in no man’s land singing carols and exchanging gifts. I think that night might have been the last true Christmas.
Let’s all go out and fight over parking spots, not really getting that last sale item, pushing past millions of people in aisle 3 where nerves are a lot more frazzled, and think of the German soldier Fritz and Tommy embracing in no man’s land in Belgium.
Merry Christmas.
— Peter Boyles
P.S., We’ll be back next month with a scathing article on the fools who vote in the state of Colorado and the United States of America