The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Back in the less consumer-driven days of early Christmas, we South Enders would hang our stockings by the chimney with great care. Mostly so they wouldn’t catch fire…I mean, we used that chimney for heat. How Santa was going to get down the brick chute without scorching those red pajamas of his, us young’uns didn’t have a clue. So we worried about St. Nick. Well, mostly we worried he wouldn’t leave us anything at all while he was hustled off to the nearest burn unit. Our parents told us not to lose any sleep over it – Santa probably had fire retardant uniforms. Oh, right, like Kris Kringle moonlighted as a chemist half the year.

But Santa always did seem to find the South End on Christmas … which didn’t help to explain the half empty stockings and the paucity of presents under the tree every year at our house. We kids just figured Santa had checked his stupid list, probably twice, and we were blacklisted on the NAUGHTY side once again. We even used to leave cookie bribes and a jug of something savory to drink when he showed up. It was odd how the jug was always empty and still, the stockings were sadly deficient. Pa always said the reindeer must’ve been thirsty and we’d say, hey, if Donder and Blitzen could find their way here and down a burning chimney with a 6 inch hole to the woodstove, how come St. Nick couldn’t find us? And Ma would give Pa a dirty look and say, something was Blitzen all right, but it wasn’t the reindeer….

Santa finds the South End pretty easily now, I’m telling you. Come Christmas morning it looks like a China R Us down the middle of the living room, barely room to squeeze near the tree. Nowadays we don’t leave Santa a plate of cookies. He expects an ATM machine and a Visa Card. Christmas down on the South End lasts and lasts – about 12 easy payments, then it starts all over ….

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Christmas on the equatorial South End doesn’t arrive on Black Friday, one hour after Turkey Day is still undigested, the way it does the rest of Jingle Bell America. The urge to drive 40 miles to the nearest mall with a maxxed out credit card doesn’t compel us to hurry up the holiday that will only push us one step closer to bankruptcy trying to buy the kids enough presents to hide the water basin under the tree.
Oh sure, it’s swell to say every year that the holiday is really about the Spirit of Giving, that the True Meaning is sharing and love and blah blah blah. But for a full month the REAL meaning blasts across the airwaves, piles in drifts of glossy sale ads, whistles down the blacktop in a high decibel muzak howl fever-pitched to buy buy buy some more….
Nothing new here. Nothing we haven’t heard every year of our lives. Too much commercialism. Too much emphasis on materialism. Too much tinsel, too little joy? Plug in the Blu-Ray re-released hi-definition “It’s A Wonderful Life” and watch it for the 50th time, only $29.95 on Amazon or run down to Wal-Mart at midnight on Thanksgiving with White Christmas spewing over the loudspeaker in a synthesized cadence determined by a shopper survey study group to enhance purchasing.
Naw, you can have it. Down here we’re gonna hang the nettle wreaths the day before Santa sets sail, string a few festive lights (that won’t stay up all year) and maybe invite a few neighbors in for a Yuletide nog spiked with something savory. We won’t give too many gifts, you can bet your stockings hung with care, not in these hard economic times, but we’ll help fill the food bank carts for those who need help this season way more than us.
Like always, we’ll drink a toast. To another year with our loved ones. To Peace on earth. To good will toward men. And women too. We probably won’t watch “It’s A Wonderful Life”, we’ll just try to live it. And hey, all you Cyber Monday Shoppers — A Merry Christmas to You, Too! Just not 365 days of the year, okay?

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