December Is a Funny Month

As I write this my neighborhood is being overrun with leaf blowers. You know, that incredible invention that allows your average suburban homeowner to imagine what it sounds and smells like to be a Hell’s Angel gang member revving up his Harley for the ride home from the annual Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally and bake sale. As an added benefit my lawn obsessed neighbors are setting off every crying baby and barking dog on the block.

At any rate, the pretty leaves will continue to fall for another month or so, as will the chorus of leaf blowers chiming in daily till the last leaf has been thoroughly vanquished, kind of like the end of summer cacophony of crickets, hoping to find one more mate and have one more speed dating session before they get frozen into lonely bachelorhood for the winter. What I’m getting at is that it’s not nearly December here in Ohio, but due to publishing deadlines beyond my control I need to write this story now, so that come December readers will have something topical to read. But I guess that’s not really so different than all the other people in our holiday obsessed world who are already putting up displays of lights and reindeer, or digging out their old Santa outfits and finding that that they’ve actually gotten a little too snug to bellow “Ho, ho, ho” without risking a “ho, ho, hernia.”

This is the season when we’re suddenly reminded that another year has gone by and we’ve completely neglected to thank Aunt Mabel and Uncle Karl for that lovely set of Tupperware bowls that they sent last holiday, let alone attempted to rush mail them a guilt ridden post-holiday gift. The only hope now is to get ahead of the gifting game this year and send them a nice couch pillow or sweater set (or subscription to Funny Times!) before they try to unload a yard sale quality vase, or velvet Elvis painting just to make us suffer for our total lack of communication for an entire year.

Why is it that we have no problem checking the website for betthefarm.com every ten minutes, but we can’t make one lousy call to Aunt Mabel on her birthday, or Uncle Karl after he’s had triple root canal surgery? It’s not like we don’t think about being a good nephew every time we burp our green Tupperware bowl. But then we have to check the latest football betting parlay, or the weather report for next Thursday when we’re supposed take the kids to the outdoor ice skating rink and the next time we remember it’s 10 pm, too late to call unless we want to risk Mabel or Karl falling down the stairs running to answer the phone, because they think the only reason anyone calls that late at night is a dire emergency or a Nobel Prize.

Another thing I think a lot about during the Holiday season is food. I guess I think a lot about food in every other season as well, but during the Holidays food prep, and food availability goes into overdrive. At the supermarket in December there are fruits and vegetables on display that none of the cashiers even know the names of. It’s like God came up with an entirely different menu of plants that only flower and fruit for His Son’s birthday. And if you don’t happen to believe that particular biblical story maybe you can just consider that all the special fruits, wonderful cakes, cookies, and other delicacies that show up this month are simply to celebrate the fact that this crazy year is finally almost done with and we’ll all have the chance to start over again, albeit with a huge credit card bill and a hangover from that orange flavored Vodka so-called friends insisted we drink too much of at the holiday party.

Groucho Marx once said, “I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.” Personally, I’m looking forward to a genuine return to reality and a reality based holiday season this year. Since I don’t know who won the election as I write this, nor what kind of craziness may have ensued in its aftermath, I’m probably delusional for thinking that the fever has broken. But whatever has happened since I wrote these words and you’ve finally had the chance to read them, after finishing wrapping packages or waiting in line to return wrong sized sweater sets, I want to wish you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons. And if this happens to include having all your neighbors leaf blowers suddenly permanently recalled by their makers in a monumental leaf blower rapture, so much the better.