It is 5:00 AM here in Flalaland. Winter Solstice has assured me I will still have a couple of hours of darkness. After running through my various news sources I am just enjoying a little solitude. This morning I am thinking of Christmas which is a mere two sunrises away. 

We are having family of all sorts over the next several days. New Jersey and Colorado will visit and we will see how many people can fit in our smallish house. Blowup beds and vacant closets will serve as elegant suites. No one really cares. We are all here. 

I got to wondering about where we are in this celebration. It turns out the whole thing started in the third century AD.

There was this pagan festival, called Saturnalia  that celebrated the longest night and the hope that as days got longer there would be more light and prosperity. 

The marketing department of the early Catholic Church decided this would be the best way to increase worshippers by tagging along and providing a new spin. Jesus was the new and improved “Light of the World!” Over the years various regions added their own wrinkles. Most of the time it happened by accident. Someone said “Hey that works for me” and a new tradition was born. 

Hey, let’s be honest. We always look for a way to make money. Trees, cards, even Christmas carols can yield untold riches for those who suck us in with a bit of merriment but also a healthy dose of greed and guilt. Always a sure fire combination to get you to open your wallet. Hurry,hurry. You can get a Nativity set straight from Bethlehem. Or you can just go to Target. No one will know. 

I don’t know about you but I love Christmas carols. In years past neighbors got together and fortified with a little Schnappes ventured out to spread cheer for their neighbors. I remember those days as I listen to Beyonce belting out, O Little Town of Bethlehem in some super slinky outfit. I hope she brought a blanket. 

Stockings by the chimney come to us from Scandinavia. Before global warming, the way home from school was via a deep snowy lane.This was before snowblowers. Your socks got wet and you hung them in front of the fireplace to dry. On Christmas Day they were filled with candy or mouthwash or whatever. You put your name on it because your brother’s feet stunk. Now you can get personalized booties from Neiman Marcus for just short of a thousand smackers. 

You probably already knew that the idea of Santa Claus came from St. Nicholas. The saint wasn’t really a bearded man who wore a red suit; that look came much later. In the fourth century, the Christian bishop gave away his large inheritance to the poor and rescued women from servitude. In Dutch, his name is Sinter Klaas, which later morphed into Santa Claus. 

Actually Santa was little creepy looking until in 1931 when Coca Cola came up with the  image we see today. Not because they were beneficent but because you would down more bottles of Coke. The new look was cosponsored by dentists and Weight Watchers. It’s the real thing!

Christmas trees came to the fore because our European friends thought it was too friggin cold already in December. The smell of fir and the sight of green was sure to warm one’s heart. Of course that has now morphed for our convenience into artificial trees, brought to you almost exclusively from those nice folks in China. 

Some 25 million Christmas trees are bought every year. Not to worry there are 350 million growing to replace them and of course to give a farming tax write off to our more wealthy brethren. 15,000 of our beloved Americanos go to the emergency room each year because of tree trimming. Lacerations, falls and back strain are the culprit. Brain damage can also be contagious in certain areas. 

One last thought on trees. It was the depression and workers were constructing Rockefeller Center. They cut a small tree (a la Charlie Brown) down in Times Square and put it on a stand at the work site. They sat around a fire and probably got loaded on Christmas Eve. In our true spirit of capitalism we now have this giant lighting ceremony, TV specials and chestnuts roasting for about $10 a bag. What a country! 

By now you have tired of my drivel. I am not faulting change but marvel at it. We are clever, imaginative and adapting. The danger is not how smart we are but how we use those brain cells. I see Patriot missiles, supersonic bombers and every wizardry of war and wonder what if we spent all that money on curing cancer or hunger. We spent $1 billion on Brittany Speers last year and we have hundreds of thousands of homeless. We concocted Oxycontin to relieve pain and caused so much more of it in our society.  What are we thinking?

Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. We are not in competition with Hanukkah or Kwanza or whatever. We all have our way of praising our own superior being. I will stop by hospice on Christmas morning. I won’t do my full shift but selfishly remind myself of what I have and my own mortality. We are born and we will die. In my clumsy way I will thank my God for all I have and that includes all of you. 

As always, 

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Bing Crosby’s classic song “White Christmas” is not only the best-selling Christmas song, but the best-selling single of all time.

The Rockefeller Center tree is always a Norway spruce, usually from 65-100 feet high. There are more than 50,000 LED lights strung before lighting. When the tree is taken down it goes to a saw mill and the lumber goes to Habitat for Humanity. Pretty Cool. 

Wreaths were made from leftover branches after trimming the tree.The religious significance is that the circular shape and evergreen material of the wreath represent eternal life. The circle, which has no beginning or end, “symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of the soul and the everlasting life we find in Christ.” Bet you didn’t know that. 

“Silent Night” is actually the most-recorded Christmas song in history. It’s had more than 733 different versions copyrighted since 1978. In World War I soldiers from both sides of the trenches sang Christmas carols together declaring a truce for one day. 

Amazon delivers 1.5 billion packages during the Christmas season. 800 million for USPS. A total of 3.4 billion for all transporters. 1.7 million packages are lost or stolen. We spend $1000 per person buying gifts. 50% of people in the United States go to church for Christmas. 

I had cataract surgery last Wednesday. The first of two. Thousands are performed daily so I won’t be looking for get well notes. Easy, peasy. When I got home and the blurring disappeared, a most amazing thing happened. It wasn’t especially the clarity I was experiencing but a whole new blaze of vibrant colors. It was literally eye opening.

When I put my hand over the eye yet to be done the prism in the new one was even more spectacular. On the other hand when I closed new one there was a smog like haze in the old one. Almost a dirty brown. All this years there had been a very subtle growth of a lens that over time clouded what the world looked like. Definitely food for thought. 

I was elated by my new found technicolor. I was jabbering away even more than usual. High on life or some sort of crap like that. The feeling lessened a touch but not gone just yet. It is still very cool a week after. Ah, this should be time for one of my manyfold epiphanies. Not really, but a new appreciation for this crazy machine called my body does exist. 

Google your eyes to speak and you will be blown away by the complexity of the structure. Rods, cones, irises, corneas, retinae, optic nerves. Yikes. Who the hell figured out how to put this all together in the first place? Of course there is no superior being. We just evolved. Really?

The eyes are the window to the soul. They and the sense of sound are our ways of communicating and understanding. We look, we savor, we inspect, we internalize. Taking it all in and drawing a conclusion. We deem things attractive or ugly by a quick glance. The first impression is lasting. Unfortunately they can be  the tools of our bias and affection at the same time. 

There is near sightedness, farsightedness, myopia, crossed eyes and even blindness. Do they all refer to the physical only or perhaps those ailments too have a deeper meaning? Do we have rose colored or dark lenses? I hope that is worth thinking about. 

I got to thinking about vision in a more metaphorical sense. What has my vision of life been and what do I hope it will  be? More importantly is there anyone else with those same feelings? Not so much looking for kindred spirits but rather can we all fit into this world with so many variant views. 

We fantasize or at least I do. I find as I get older that some of those aspirations are not quite as lofty as in prior years. It is not a matter of getting depressed or feeling worthless but pragmatic. There is only so much we can do. More importantly some of those dreams are beyond achievable. 

Today we tell each other non stop of what you need or how happy we we could be if only? The elixir of the traveling salesman is just there for the taking. We paint endless pictures of what could be. The new car. The skinny body. The riches of a mansion. Faraway places. Why can’t that view be simple, bucolic, achievable? 

Unfortunately we are careening towards election time. Parties put together platforms that are more hail Mary passes than a cogent plan. We quiz to see the candidate’s vision of America. We get bobs and weaves and brushoffs so we really don’t know where they stand. You get the picture. 

Of course we have seers and prognosticators. In their infinite wisdom they know what is going to happen in the stock market or warfronts. Globalization is here to stay. The stock market won’t do anything this year. Russia will annihilate Ukraine. China will replace the United States as THE world power. Dewey will win. (Wait, that was too long ago. ) Is their vision flawed or a little too cock sure? Artificial Intelligence? Now that is a wild card one could not begin to define. Or foresee.  

If you have hung there with me on this one I hope I have opened your eyes to just a little. I am right there with you. The overwhelming result of this whole mess has caused me to just look around me. Maybe reexamine how I look at things? Is there another vantage point or even alternative route to this thing we call life? Maybe some adjudged schmuck who  really isn’t that bad after all? Maybe a scorned idea that might make sense? Here’s looking at you. 

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Seeing is so important that it takes up more than 50% of the brain’s functionality.

The most active muscles in your body are in your eyes.

Your eyes contain 7 million cones which help you see colour and detail and 100 million cells called rods which help you to see better in the dark.

It takes just one-tenth of a second for people to judge someone and make a first impression. Research finds that the more time participants are afforded to form the impression, the more confidence in impressions they report. In the first eight seconds after meeting a prospect, the prospect evaluates your social standing.   Be on the lookout!

A true visionary is someone who can see beyond the common, the ordinary, and the expectations that surround them into the great possibilities of what could be.