Merry Christmas

 

      ...from our household to yours.

     We had such high hopes for 2021. It was like throwing out the bad seed, the one who robbed his parents blind and spent the money on crack and setting off the next one to college with the highest hopes, only to find out the younger one was fencing for the older one.

     Just when we thought we were clear, that good fortune would actually come with pulling out a new calendar, there was the insurrection. Then, less than five months later, the newer, deadlier Delta variant. Then, just in time for the holidays, this new Omicron variant that, thus far, isn't quite as fatal but probably the most transmissible one ever. Now we're told the J&J vaccine wasn't good enough, after all, and the CDC recommends taking a Moderna or Pfizer booster.

     Oh, and cloth masks are no good, any more, against Omicron.

     Airlines are canceling flights by the thousands, 4500, at last count. We lost more Americans to COVID in 2021 than we had all last year. The president's doing his level-headed best but we're still getting conflicting signals from the medical experts in the government. They were caught flat-footed, again. As were we all.

     But humans are a stubbornly optimistic species and I count myself among that number. I lost some dear ones this year, not all to COVID but life is for the living. And that's a bromide because it's true.

     Whatever adjustments we had to make all over the world, it's safe to say billions of us still celebrated Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa whether we bought our gifts in brick and mortar stores or online or made them by hand, with relatives in the flesh or through Zoom, Facebook Live or Skype.

     Because life, and hope, stubbornly endures. That is what defines humankind. We will always stubbornly, instinctually, find reasons to be joyful, like a flower springing from a crack in the sidewalk. We will not have that taken from us. Not by an angry mob a year ago, not by some germ or anything.

     As the Framers said when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, we all have the right to the pursuit of happiness. Happiness is not a right but there's nothing to stop us from seeking, and finding, it.

 

 

     These are just two of the presents I got this year but they're two of the best ones I've gotten in a while. They're blank journals, the one on the left sporting a leather cover that's not really leather but I'll pretend it is. It's 192 pages, wide and with nearly 40 lines a page. This is precisely the kind of notebook I often get for myself and Mrs. JP knew that and, with my #1 son Adam, picked them out at Walmart the day before Xmas Eve.

     Does that mean anything to you? Probably not much, if at all, but it made me happy. It also made me happy to be able to spend some time with my son for the first time since his fiancee Elyse suddenly died on October 11. I take joy in his continuing ruddy good health.

     We take joy where ever we can find it, even if we have to desperately snatch it from the unlikeliest of places. That kid you never liked who spontaneously shovels your walkway because he knows you're getting on in years or are nursing an injury. The comically inappropriate gift you got from your Secret Santa at work. Or the Xmas card you got from some other state or Canada with an indecipherable signature, making you wonder who'd thought of you.

     The joy comes from the best thoughts of others, that you were honored by occupying their thoughts when joy is most needed and at a time of the year when it always seems to be in such short supply.

     So, from our household to yours, have a safe and joyous holiday season and let's wish for many more.