Reprinted from another holiday season.
I’ve again watched the 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 an SEC West football team.
One night I spent three solid hours at four different stores, but the only success I had was finding parking places within 100 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 I guess they moved from the backyard.
Their cars have wreaths on the front and back, and there is a loudspeaker that plays “12 Days of Christmas” 24/7. They have a manger with the baby Jesus and his parents, the ox and the lamb, and the camels carrying Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. There’s also an elephant, which I don’t remember from the traditional scene.
On the other side of the yard are a bunch of lighted deer, a blow up Frosty, and Santa and his reindeer – including Rudolph.
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 once lived near did 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 Dec. 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 spotted a cardinal in her bird feeder or in a nearby tree, she’d excitedly point it out to us.
My grandparents lived 30 minutes away. When my grandfather became unable to drive – probably in his mid-eighties – one of us would make the trip to get them and bring them to mom’s house.
One year, there was a bad ice storm, and they became resigned to not being able to get to us. But I was intent on seeing them, and began the slow slide north in my Jeep. Three hours later, I arrived. When I pulled into their carport, I saw Alice 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 that year, and many years after. My grandfather passed away in 1995, at the age of 94.
Alice lived on, fooling us all, and we were fortunate enough to have her for three more Christmases after my grandfather passed. I think of her often at this time of year, or any time there’s a cardinal nearby.
Jay Edwards is editor-in-chief of the Hamilton County Herald and an award-winning columnist. Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com