Your guess is as good as mine
Posted on 12/24/2016 3:03:53 PM PST by Skooz
Hey everyone. In what has become a Christmas Eve tradition, of sorts, I would like to wish all of those Freepers who, like myself, have for whatever reason found themselves alone this Christmas Eve.
I hope this thread can, as in previous years, serve as a gathering place for the solo folks who may otherwise have little or no contact with others on this celebrated evening.
You are not alone, really.
God bless us, God bless us everyone.
Yeah, My husband passed away in May. Odd this year for me. Sad too.
I had lunch with my kids and now am home alone and enjoying it very much.
Your guess is as good as mine
I’m alone tonight and tomorrow this year. Family’s out of town.
I’ll do my celebrations on new years.
Real, yes. Its been legal for a few years now, but the amount of wormwood is reduced. I have some “real” stuff that was bootlegged out of Switzerland, as well as a full unopened bootle of pre ban Pernod.
Yup. Beloved wife passed in 13. Don’t really get along with her family but I make sure my daughter spends Christmas Eve with them. For myself, being Italian, I don’t have the energy to cook the fishes, but my grandmother always made a marinara sauce with cauliflower served over capelli d’angeli pasta. So that tradition I always keep. Have the Bose linked to my computer playing Mannheim Steamroller, whom I first heard listening to Rush. MERRY CHRISTMAS . GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO.
“For myself, I’m about to sit down to a dinner of gifted cheese, crackers and sausage and enjoy one of my favorite Christmas movies — MST3K’s version of, ‘Santa Clause.’ A true classic.”
How the HECK are YOU alone on Christmas Eve? I’d marry you in a heartbeat!
Merry Christmas, Skooz! You’re a Keeper! ;)
Alone here in WV....my street lit up with candle luminaries and am watching a Justin Hayward concert on AmazonPrime. Merry Christmas to all!
One of the abiding delusions of the male mind is the belief it is actually possible to put off critical Christmas shopping until late on the 23rd of December. I am the apostle of this delusion. I take comfort in this false belief every year. No amount of actual experience ever shakes my conviction that it is not only possible to shop like this but economically prudent too. And every year this faith is tested and found wanting. Whatever I may save in last minute markdowns I pay for in this evening's glowing and gut-wrenching angst.
So there I was waiting at the "Information" counter in the local Barnes & Noble in search of, well, "information." I simply wanted to know if this gigantic repository of games, gags, cards, calendars, coffee, and, oh yes, books had a certain title and where it might be located. I was one of a small cloud of befuddled customers hovering about the source of "Information" and the service in the store at this hour of the evening on this last day was not exactly "crisp."
Bluntly stated, the "information" staff of 2.5 employees had had it. Burnt out, tired, tried to the breaking point, they were still going through the corporate mandated methods of "helping" customers locate what they were looking for. At Barnes and Noble these days that means, as it means at so many other stores, a quick look-up and then a guided tour to the book the customer has requested, a hang-out until the clerk is sure they've found it, and then an inquiry of that person whether or not they need anything else. People have gotten married on flimsier relationships.
This mandated hand holding means that those needing a simple data-base query run and simply to be told "That's under the author's name in Philosophy over there," tend to build up at the desk in hordes. And in these hordes on this night nobody's happy. Add to this stituation people actually calling on the phone with "information" requests and you can see the slow steam beginning to rise off the assembled.
Your real need to know means nothing to the "information" clerks of Barnes and Noble. They must, MUST, comply with corporate protocol lest some corporate quality control spy find they are doing things efficiently according to the situation and fire them. They know they could make things run smoother, but they also know they can't. I understand this and, most of the time, I try to hobble my impatience and irritability out of empathy for their plight. Working retail on this day is not a stroll through a heaven of angels wings, babies bottoms, and hot chocolate with teeny tiny marshmallows on top.
However, this was the witching hour of Christmas shopping for me and I was getting ticked off as my, MY!, evening ticked away. The store was crowded and shabby by this point. The lines of my fellow sufferers (90% fellow male procrastinators) were long and growing longer. You could feel their nerve tissues fray and almost see the sparks glinting where the nerves were touching each other and sizzling.
Just when I thought it would be my turn at last to get my measly little question answered and get my own personal guided tour to the book I needed the phone rang at the "Information" desk and the woman, who should have been MY GUIDE THIS INSTANT!, took the call. She listened and said, "I'll see." Then she turned and disappeared into the bowels of the store.
Finally peeved I couldn't help saying out loud in a scathing tone as she departed, "Jesus CHRIST!"
Without missing a beat the man waiting next to me turned and said, "Well, that's Who we're here for, isn't it?"
In the serious practice of Zen meditation, the jikijitsu walks behind the meditators in the hall with a keisaku, a flat stick. If you are having a problem with the depth of your meditation, your focus, you bow slightly in your Zazen posture as the jikijitsu walks by and he gives you a quick and solid rap on the shoulders with the stick. This snaps you into it.
In this case, this man's observation snapped me out of it like a sharp whack on the shoulders from a keisaku. Snapped me out of my bitter mood and back into the reality of the Christmas season instead of the illusion of the bookstore.
"Thanks. Thank you," I said. "You're absolutely right. He is the reason we're here. I needed that."
We both laughed. I shook his hand and left the store and my remaining little needs behind. I'd just gotten what I needed.
Outside in the parking lot you could see the getting and spending still going on in the dark. Beyond the parking lot were the roads and the woods and the streams and the mountains all under a white shawl of snow. Driving back through the whiteness I realized I didn't need to buy any more gifts for anybody. We all already have more gifts than we need or know how to use.
What we all need for Christmas is often the last thing we want -- a sharp whack from a keisaku wielding jikijitsu focusing us to simply accept, at the very last minute, His gift.
The soup is home. Worked today, youngest daughter is stopping in on the way home from her work for a gift exchange.
I am supposed to work tomorrow. Fell on ice at work today, not sure I will be better tomorrow. Rather be at work that at a Quick Care.
‘Muppet Christmas Carol’
We watched that while we baked cookies this year. Beau had never seen it; he’s lived a sheltered life, LOL!
I’m also a fan of, ‘Die Hard’ as a Christmas Movie, and I LOVE the version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ with Patrick Steward.
We listened to Charles Dickens’, ‘The Cricket on the Hearth’ on the drive home from family Christmas last night.
Yep and perfectly fine with it! Egg Nog time is fast approaching, lots of snow, (it looks like a winter time Swiss Alps picture up here!) deer patiently waiting for their ‘treats’ and I’m healthy and happy! Merry Christmas to all Freepers!
I'll likely be going to a movie tomorrow. Any suggestions?
While I’m going to celebrate with relatives tomorrow, tonight I’m alone.
I’m going to a movie party at a movie chain — as an Alan Rickman fan, it’s important to celebrate his life this year, and this party tonight where the audience participates in the film Die Hard — what could be more Christmassy?!
Laid up with the worst case a the flu i have had in 10 years.
Told the family and friends to stay away.
Lets go Cowboys and Texans.
(fever delirium)
Since my wife has banished me from the living room to wrap a few things, I’m joining you guys! Here is a small Christmas Eve gift from me to you. It’s a Christmas song written and produced by my niece and nephews of Echosmith. Hope you like it! Love to all!
In “Going Hollywood,” Bing drinks absinthe in a dive in Mexico, and sings “Temptation” to a hallucination of Fifi D’Orsay.
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