Today is high up in my stratosphere because it represents a return to normalcy. Such a 1920s term, normalcy. President Harding used it while running for President in 1920, in the years immediately after World War I. It was a catchphrase to make people comfortable, to assure them that the War was over and we could get back to the way things were.
For me that means a more normal routine. I'm truly sad to confess that Christmas, while important, doesn't mean to me what it seems to mean to so many others. I love it but I'm not always sure I like it. It has become too commercial; I stand in good company thinking so too, don't I, Mr. Schultz? I like watching the movies and listening to the carols. I like going to Midnight Mass, though I missed it this year for the first time in I don't know when (I made it to Christmas Mass, just not at Midnight). Beyond that I will even admit that part of the fault is strictly my own. I find that I'm increasingly less participatory about Christmas. I would rather sit and reflect than revel in it. There's simply a deeper meaning to the season than bright lights and warm cider.
I wonder if in celebrating Christmas so brashly that we tend to skirt that. If it's only about friends and family, well, we're really underselling the rest of the year aren't we? Shouldn't friends and family be an all year thing? And if it is only about getting and giving I would say emphatically the hell with it, though I know that is not true of the great majority of people. There's just got to be something in the middle which sees the Holiday more rightly.
But as of now, I welcome normalcy. I look forward to the trips I'll take to visit my sons and the time I'll spend with my daughter (and their respective spouses), to the golfing and gatherings with friends, more than I look forward to the pomp and pageantry of next Christmas. And I'm willing to argue that that's a good thing.
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