[Magdalen] Christmas memories

[Scott Knitter]

Mostly I struggle with Christmas (as many of you know only too well),
as I've long ago burned out on the idea of acting a certain way and
doing certain things mainly to satisfy the immutable expectations of
those who must "have" a "perfect" "Christmas" and have lots of rules
about what that must be. I've come to learn that these expectations
are mostly projections in my mind. But some are real, like those of my
partner's family, who take traditions to the nth degree: if they
visited somewhere on vacation years ago and had a marvelous time, that
becomes a tradition, so the same place must be visited on the same day
every year, staying in the same room of the same B&B, etc. And
holidays must be done identically every year. I'd find that rather
imprisoning, but I'm weird.

I'm a bit mellower this year, mainly because the holiday is tightly
crowded by ongoing work for my job, and most of what I might consider
doing for Christmas has had to be written off. I'm diverging from my
editing right now and should get back to it.

One of my favorite memories, oddly, is of my Uncle Jim, who probably
still does this: He finds things to complain about (in his loud voice)
and attaches extra outrage to them based on their happening on or near
Christmas. "Looked out the window, and there was a parking ticket on
my car!....Merry Christmas!"  "Got to the checkout aisles, and every
aisle had a line halfway to the back of the store!....Merry
Christmas!" "A guy cut me off on the expressway, and HE flipped ME
off!....Merry Christmas!"

A beloved Knitter family tradition.

-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA