A rant about 2024, and the hopes for a better New Year

OK, 2025. Let's try a new theme this time around, OK?

If the caricaturistic Baby New Year arriving as the Old New Year troll departs is what springs to mind, let's give the new kid some steel-toed combat boots to use while 2024 empties his cosmic Depends undies into the commode of history.

War, everywhere. Terrorism abroad, and on New Year's Eve in New Orleans. 

Family homelessness up 40 percent under the soon-to-depart Democratic rule of the past four years.

Crime surged, especially among the tens of thousands of illegally arrived convicted criminals, narco-gang members, and human traffickers that flowed across our broken borders; inept and misdirected immigration law enforcement played no small role, as directed and crippled by "progressive" far-left Democratic Party policies.

Then there were gender identity debates that tossed reason and biology to the winds of emotions and manufactured civil rights diatribes. Too often lost in the vitriol was the idea that every human being is worth something, loved by God, and is, for various reasons and the vagaries of life, in need of individual respect.

Finally, the voters may have rejected the lemming-like rush to the abyss, but will the pendulum now swing too far toward over-zealous retribution?

Will enforcement of the consequences of the years of deteriorating values and the resulting hate and division end up not fulfilling promises to restore moral and civil sanity . . . but devolve into our species' all-too-familiar patterns of revenge and retribution?

So, there's that to mull over, from a societal, even global perspective. By this time next year, we might have a clearer, and I hope more encouraging perspective,

Personally? My 2024 was one of hearing loss, the remedies -- hearing aids adjustment, possible yet-to-explored medical options -- seemingly in a frustrating, inconclusive stalemate.

Heart problems continued, treated with new prescriptions when electrical shocks failed to reset irregularities, and then a couple weeks ago by "ablation" (zapping from inside the heart, via arterial catheter). 

So far, docs say, that last procedure worked; they seem confident (and I pray) that all this did indeed cure those stubborn atrial flutters.

So, may 2025 see me turning 72 feeling better than I have in several years, and building new memories of love with my wife and family and leave those worries behind.

As for family, we all suffered as 2024 wound down. Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers here were unavoidably derailed.

Thanksgiving turkey dinners went into the freezer, instead of the mouths of gathered family. Christmas was not filled with the delighted shrieks and laughter of family opening gifts with us, or of packing our condo with hugs.

The stockings, which lined the fireplace mantle, were unfilled, that Jolly Old Elf a no show.

But Facetime video visits helped, digitally uniting grandparents in Utah with children and children-in-law (?) both nearby (but sick), and grandsons newly moved to Arizona from Maryland, and our granddaughter still in Baltimore.

Gifts went from being under the tree here, to being UPSed to their recipients, arriving a couple days late, but still appreciated. Whew.

Barbara, my mate of 51 years, and I endured a flood of Christmas TV movies. There was holiday music enjoyed as it played from the stereo, as we watched the fireplace, and how  its flamelight reflected and flickered along green holiday wreaths and manger scene miniatures.

Barbara helped with the Christmas programs and celebrations for kids and adults alike at her Evangelical church in West Valley City; I found my peace, awe, and loving fellowship amid echoing chants, clouds of incense, bells, prayers, and a constellation of candles at my Eastern Orthodox church in downtown Salt Lake City.

Lessons? 

St. Paul put it this way:

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead." -- (Philippians 3:13)

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NO Christmas trees before Thanksgiving, you holiday-ruining turkeys!

There really should be a law about playing Christmas songs before Thanksgiving, at least.

The commercialism and forced yuletide cheer is annoying enough without bombarding us with Saccharin-sweet ditties that were stale and headache-inducing when our grandparents were young, for crying out loud.

How many times, people, can you really listen to Alvin the Chipmunks sing about Hula Hoops and the holidays?

Even before Halloween, the big box stores were stocking the shelves with fake trees, ornaments and all the other Christmas detritus.

Let us progress, as the holiday deities intended, to Thanksgiving and then, if you must, start flocking the pine and/or plastic trees and caroling, or braving the manic aisles of the toy stores, etc.

So, it should be no surprise at all that I am a Facebook fan of Playing Christmas music BEFORE Thanksgiving is ANNOYING!
That's where the awesome cartoons come from.

Finally, a place to give vent to my primordial Scrooge.

Some wisdom from the site:

"Everytime a Christmas Tree is lit before Thanksgiving, a baby reindeer is drowned by an angry elf."

The HallowThankMas Marathon of Greed

Two-thirds of the way through the corporately homogenized *HalloThankMas season: a veritable blur of consumerism on steroids, appeals to greed and gadgets as the keys to happiness. 

It can be . . . maddening, depressing, frustrating and leave your soul black and blue. And if you watched TV news coverage of "Black Friday" -- and mobs lined up to scrum through the doors for a bargain on electronics, toys and whatever else will not survive the first week of January as a source of visceral joy -- you know this "happiest of seasons" can leave you physically black and blue, too.

Or bleeding, in the hospital, with a bullet in your gullet.

Still, I refuse to surrender Christmas to commercialism in my heart. And, that's where the message, and person of the season should live, thrive and be honored . . . if we do that, it should gush out of us in patience, understanding, love and generosity of spirit, action and thought. 

It should; but that, my friends, is entirely up to us.

 

 *HalloThankMas: OK, I made it up. Musing over how goblins, turkeys, elves and Santa seemed to have merged into one, months-long orgy of spending and partying, I even suggested just coming with with a suitable mascot . . . perhaps a vampire turkey in a red suit.

 

 

'Life of Pi,' no pumpkin pie . . . but still a nice Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner at IHOP this year,just Barb and me. Couldn't make it work with the family this time of year -- life and work and priorities just didn't mesh to do it on "the day."
So, will be doing post-Thanksgiving Japanese food with my son and his sweet wife on Saturday. And, we're "thankful" for that.
But this Thanksgiving Day, we but shared with a happy Pacific Island family, a young Latino couple and their baby, a couple of old folks (well, older than we are). 
The turkey was moist, dressing was tasty, broccoli steamed nicely.
We also saw "The Life of Pi." WOW. My head is still spinning, and both of us had tears in our eyes. Amazing acting, seamless special effects, beautiful film work. A nice departure from the assembly-line Hollywood pablum that stretches perception, and humanity.
And, I'm talking about the regular movie format, not the 3-D. I would imagine that would be something else, just as wonderful for different reasons. 
So, of course, I now must read the novel by Yann Martel from which the movie drew it's inspiration. It's a commitment I made to myself as a young man, beginning with seeing "Little Big Man." 
And yes, as great as that movie was, the book by Thomas Berger was better. Same with John Irving's "World According to Garp," and while the "Lord of the Rings" movies were wonderful (and I look forward to seeing "The Hobbit" soon), I'm sorry, J.R.R. Tolkien's writing, genius and story-telling stand alone as art.

Challenges, yes. Still, the best Thanksgiving, ever.

A tough year. And, the best Thanksgiving, ever.
Seems unlikely, looking at 2012 in cynical perspective. The near-miss with what would've been a massive, instantly deadly cardiac event. Open-heart surgery to replace the failed aortic valve, and a long (still ongoing) recovery.
Having to face the darkness and drawn-out grief of Alzheimer's, and the need to move my folks into assisted living.
The hard decision, made inevitable by Washington residency requirements for guardianship, to see my big (older)-little (mentally disabled by cerebral palsy) sister become a ward of the state.
Callie, my best furry friend, claimed by cancer long before her time.
But, perspective is the key. Always has been.
And when I look at the blessings, instead of the challenges, this has been a great year:
I'm alive, and getting stronger and healthier all the time, the Grim Reaper fended off indefinitely.
My folks, having adjusted to their move, now seem happy and are safe and provided for, even as their bodies and minds leave this existence and are resurrected in the broader, eternal realm of Love that comes next.
My sister is in a group home where the staff cares, and is happy with her life and sheltered workshop duties.
Callie -- I was able to say goodbye to my sweet-natured border collie, holding her head in my hands and speaking words of love as the light faded from her trusting eyes.
And then there's my daughter, Brenda, finding love, a new husband and a little daughter . . . giving Barb and me a wonderful son-in-law, and a sweet granddaughter to bless our family . . . already blessed by a wonderful daughter-in-law and grandson.
So, yes. This is the best Thanksgiving, ever.