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Holiday Jeers |
December 2002
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Many Happy Returns
Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is coming, and soon, it will be Gift-Returning Season. Sweaters that don't fit, books one has read, odd-shaped household things that appear not to have any real use, all shall be taken back for the sacred "store credit."
Why we go through this every year seems rather removed from the birth of the Christ Child, the Miracle of the Lights in the Temple, or the simple fact that the Winter Solstice has just passed. Indeed, the day after Thanksgiving has come to be known in the retail world as "Black Friday," because often that is the day business for the year moves out of the red. It would be vastly more efficient simply to hand out cash.
Yet, as Dr. Seuss tell us in his seminal Yuletide work, the Grinch learns that Christmas (and indeed all celebrations of life) comes without presents, without packages, boxes and bows. December 25th will come and go whether one has finished the shopping or not. It will still be Christmas without a goose or turkey, without mistletoe or eggnog. Some will have the best Christmas ever, some will have their worst. And for only a few will that depend on what is under the tree.
So, with that in mind, we say, "Farewell 2002, and good riddance." Since the world has not seen fit to improve adequately in the last several months, there is but one course available. In January, the Kensington Review becomes a weekly.