12.17.2002 Christmastime
Christmastime is so pretty. I know. I know. There’s a lot of commercialism in it all and for our religious friends, this may seem like it distracts the holiday from its true purpose. I’m not really a religious person, but I do empathize with being spiritual and holding onto a particular faith. And, I guess that anything that may take advantage of that can be viewed negatively. Oh, but the commercialism, its just so nice and really does warm my heart. C’mon, I grew up with Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer calling out, “I’m cute! I’m cute!” and little Herbie who would rather be a dentist.
And I am a sucker for the Christmas lights. I just love them. I wish that they would leave them up all winter. Seeing how it gets so dark so early now, I would rather see Christmas lights. Oh so nice. We actually live in the outskirts of Dyker Heights, a Christmas wonderland. It’s pretty well known for its excessive Christmas decorations extravaganzas. They say that some of the houses take about 3 months putting up the lights and decorations and about 1 month afterwards taking them down. Yeah, its crazy, it’s actually sort of gaudy. But, I love it.
What are those distant bells I hear? Could it be? Oh man, I wish it really was Santa and I still remember how disappointed I was when I was told he wasn’t real (Sorry, I didn’t mean to spoil it for anyone. Really. I didn’t want you to find out this way.) Yeah, that Santa dude is awesome. Actually, I saw a couple of them while visiting the mall this past weekend.
This one Santa, he was actually on the heavy side. In other words, he didn’t need the extra padding in his suit. He also had a little fan sitting off to the side that kept him slightly cool. He looked real enough, but there was something about him that was slightly disturbing. It was one of those things that you can’t place your finger on, but you know something is just not right with the picture. Later, Elizabeth swears that she saw him push a kid away after taking a picture. Weird. Oh, I love this Christmastime.
