Santa Held Hostage

An old post card from the turn of the last century, found in a box of family things

I love the holiday season, don't you?

Well, not all of it.

I could do without the crass advertising that tries to make a Thighmaster or a new septic system sound like an appropriate gift (and I suppose that one is, if your toilet isn't working), impatient people out running fool's errands at the shopping malls; sometimes literally fighting over a parking spot, and other commercialization like crafts fairs filled with carnival-like barkers selling overpriced "hand made" items imported wholesale from Asia - nonsense like that; but overall the opportunity to gather with family and friends to wind down another full year is often the gift I enjoy the most, so I avoid as much of the rest of it as possible and savor the kith and kin, so to speak.

The preparation for these final weeks of the year can be an enormous amount of work, though. As the years go by I find it takes me longer and longer to get the house decorated, and if it weren't for the little ones coming to visit I probably would cut back dramatically on making the place look like Santa's Whorehouse, as an old college friend so quaintly put it one year.

I mentor a half-dozen men, and this year I just may take them up on their offer to help with some of the more time-consuming parts of it. I spend a couple of hours a week lending an ear with each of them and helping keep them on a better path, so accepting the help's fair play, I suppose.

Each trip to Thailand I run across some form of Christmas decorations, and this year I decided to put them all out.  Maybe I'll get around to posting some images of the places and share them before the season's over; the road to Hell being paved with good intentions, and all that...

So, if you've begun your holiday plans (of any type) I hope they're going well.  Some of you will be  making the trip to the Land of Smiles, and I'd envy you that if I didn't have other things I'd rather be doing. I've been there around Christmas a few times, but never for the days themselves. Perhaps some day.

After a full weekend of decorating I'm feeling rather like the Santa held hostage up top today - a post card from my family archives - and I'm going to take things a little easier.