It fell to me today to do that annual man-chore, usually referred to as "de-Christmasing." Take down the tree. (We've never had a real one, at least not since I was a boy, so the "out to the curb" routine isn't part of the ritual,) Put away the ornaments, making certain nothing gets broken in the process. Put away the lights, garland, and any other reusables. Vacuum where the tinsel made a mess as you were taking down the damn tree. And when that, and all other parts of the process are done, sit back, breathe a moment, and reflect on why in God's name you let yourself get so nuts-wacko-bent-out-of-shape this year, and every year. That's a weird tradition, attempting to gift your family and friends into a state of psychological near-orgasm, if for no other reason than just to see the looks on their faces. As you've probably gathered from previous posts, it wasn't necessarily a banner year. If I'm not the Christmas maniac I've been in years past, it could fall to any number of reasons; this year, mostly, I think I was just tired, didn't have much money, and frankly probably just didn't give a damn about who was enthralled and who wasn't. For the past year, I've been happy just being able to sleep in the same bed as my wife, even if I was dead-tired. No thinking about the time difference, or wishing she was where I was, or waiting hopefully for that next letter. (Don't get me wrong, the contents of some of that correspondence rocked; but it still wasn't the same as being there.) And as I have also noted before, the past year has been a turnaround of burning-bush proportions, and more work is still to be done, more hope is to be had, and in spite of everything, as much work, sacrifice, etc, as it's going to entail, this is just the beginning.

Other than that, as I said, I could blame my flagging Christmas spirit on my ex-wife's unflagging Christmas mania, as it was inevitably yours truly who hung the lights on the porch, in the windows....I probably would have ended up rigging more than one car for lights if she had things her way. Then, of course, there's the possibility that all the drama with dad just put a damper on things generally. As for gifts, I got one really good one, from Martha, a Hallmark ornament of the Chevrolet Corvette Mako Shark show car. You remember the story, I know I've told it. Bill Mitchell, chairman of GM Design in the 60s and 70s, wanted the paint on the Mako Shark to be an exact match to a shark (some say a Marlin,) he had caught sport fishing, and which hung on his office wall. After numerous attempts and failures on the part of the design paint staff, to the continued chagrin of Mr. Mitchell, the paint staff waited one afternoon until Mitchell had left for the day, surreptitiously retrieved the fish from his office, and painted the fish to match the car; word is he had no clue what had happened, but approved the "updated" design anyway.

Anyway, all things considered, at this point in my life, there's really nothing much to wish for, except to make it to the future, and be happy there.