Editorial
Front Page - Friday, December 11, 2009
Are We There Yet?
To humbug or not to humbug
Jay Edwards
Well, it is December 11 and we are already well into another season of joy, goodwill, and peace on earth, which seems to have begun months ago. Thanksgiving is only a distant memory. At my house, we actually had pumpkins underneath the Christmas stockings for a while. In fact, I have been listening to the ox and lamb keeping time so much that I’m craving hay.
My poor artificial Christmas tree has been up so long I swear it is beginning to think it’s real, because its branches are wilting and turning brown.
I have had my annual filling of George Bailey and Clarence, and Ralphie and the %#*&^ Bumpas dogs.
“Not a finga” to you too.
I’ve watched old favorites like Rudolph and Charlie Brown and Frosty, but seem to be sympathizing more with The Grinch and Ebeneezer.
I have feebly competed in the season’s shopping wars, only to be sent home battered and bruised, like the Hogs basketball team.
One night I spent a solid three hours at four different stores, but the only success I had was finding parking places within a hundred yards of each; and ended my quest with nothing to show for the effort save some Santa cocktail napkins. And even those are now gone.
The guy up the street is putting his engineer’s degree to good use as he employs the rest of his family to decorate for the holidays. He looks like Pharaoh screaming at the Israelites.
They put up lights on everything – bricks, lampposts, windows, bushes, grass, the mailbox; and even a doghouse that I guess they move from the back yard.
Their cars have wreaths on the front and back and there is a loudspeaker that plays the “12 Days of Christmas” nonstop 24/7. They have a manger with the baby Jesus and his parents, and that ox and lamb and the camels carrying Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. There is also an elephant, which I don’t remember from the traditional scene, but hey, why not.
On the other side of the yard are a bunch of those lighted deer, a blow up Frosty and Santa and his reindeer, even Rudolph.
It’s all enough to make even the Osborne family jealous (Jennings, not Ozzie).
The only thing these people don’t have that I’ve seen before is a live Santa that sits on a big red chair out in the yard for the week before the big day, so all the kids in the neighborhood can come sit on his lap and express their wishes face to face.
Some people I knew in Fayetteville used to do that, until that particular St. Nick got a little too jolly one day from the Jack Daniels he was using to keep warm. “Look mommy, Santa’s asleep in the yard.”
OK, enough grinchiness for one season. I actually love this time of year better than any other. I blame it on my late grandmother Alice, who, if she could have had her way, would have made every day December 25. Her excitement was contagious, and she and my grandfather are especially missed at Christmastime.
Her favorite color was red and it was prominent in her home. She loved red on everything. And whenever she would spot a cardinal in her bird feeder or in a tree nearby, she would excitedly point it out to us.
My grandparents lived in Conway, and my grandfather was able to drive them down to my parent’s home every year on Christmas Eve. When he became unable to drive, probably in his mid-80s, one of us would make the trip to Faulkner County to bring them back to Little Rock.
One year there was a bad ice storm in central Arkansas and my grandparents became resigned to not being able to get to us. But I was intent on getting them and began the slow slide north in my Jeep. Three hours later I arrived on Hunter Street, just north of the Hendrix campus. When I pulled into their carport I saw her standing in the doorway, wearing the familiar long red wool coat and holding her black handbag. She was ready.
We made it back safely to my mom’s home that year, and many years after. My grandfather passed away in 1995, at the age of 94. He died peacefully in that same house on Hunter, where he had lived with my grandmother since they moved from the President’s home at Hendrix.
Alice lived on, fooling us all, and we were fortunate enough to have her for three more Christmases after my grandfather passed away. I think of her often at this time of year, or any time of the year if there’s a cardinal nearby.
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