NOTHING IS OVER LIKE CHRISTMAS Jack Blanchard's Column

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NOTHING IS OVER LIKE CHRISTMAS

Nothing is over like Christmas.
Months of anticipation, and then it's gone.
Try to hold on to it and it slides away like this morning's dream.

People who tell us that it's a pagan holiday,
just because it's near the winter solstice,
may not realize what an intrusion that is upon our enjoyment.
We can each bring our own thoughts to the season,
and make it our personal non-pagan celebration.
It's in the spirit of the beholder.

It's hard to work up the spirit here in Florida,
but we give it a shot every year.
Misty decorates a tree,
and puts Christmas stuff all over the place.
We listen to Christmas music with the air conditioning on
and with palm trees lurking in the yard.

Television doesn't help, with reports of all night sales,
talking heads urging us to be good consumers,
stranded travelers sleeping in airports,
and carolers singing "Happy Honda Days".

I toss up futile prayers for snow here in the subtropics,
but this is the time of year
when we just get a cheap imitation of early autumn.
A couple of trees around here get a touch of red,
and I go look at them.

I get sentimental about Christmas,
probably because I had real Christmasy holidays years ago,
with folks who are no longer with us,
and my childish subconscious thinks it will happen again.

I think next year I'll write a letter to Santa,
and ask him for one more snowfall in Buffalo,
where the night is silent, the homes are warm,
and Christmas is strong in the air.

Jack Blanchard

Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan.
Grammy Nominees. Billboard Duet of the Year.
Home page: http://jackandmisty.net.
Facebook: http://facebook.com/jackandmisty.
Email: jackandmisty@gmail.com.
VIDEOS: http://youtube.com/jackandmisty

Fwd: MERRY CHRISTMAS ANYWAY Jack Blanchard's Column

Thousands of readers around the world.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ANYWAY.

Merry Christmas all you Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, rich, poor,
and let's not leave out the fringe weirdos.
Merry Christmas I say,
to all humans, dogs, cats, and miscellaneous living items.

Christmas has been my favorite holiday my whole life,
and I want to share it with you.
You don't have to buy me anything.

Join me in toasting old Saint Nicholas,
if he will fit in our toaster. (Haha. I get jolly at Christmas.)

Cry with me at the ending of "It's a Wonderful Life".
Let's boo and hiss together at Old Mr. Potter.
We'll get sentimental listening to the Christmas carols at Walmart.
What time is Charlie Brown on?

Let's all pray for snow even if we're in Florida.

Enjoy new times with old friends.
If we don't have any friends, let's make some.
Find somebody who looks down in the dumps,
give them a big smile, and toss them a "Merry Christmas".
If they just look at you funny and walk away, so what?
There are other people waiting to be annoyed with our Christmas glee.

Think about your home town, and try to recall the good times.
I think about Buffalo this time of year.
Not necessarily the real Buffalo, but the one that only I remember.
That's where I got all my Christmas spirit to begin with,
shopping downtown... a lost art, and trimming the scotch pine
with people we loved more than we knew at the time.

I laugh and cry a lot as Christmas approaches.
I even cry at commercials.
I laugh easily at funny remarks, especially mine.
It's embarrassing but I don't much care.
Ten minutes after the joke has slipped into the past,
I think about it and start laughing again.
Everybody tries not to notice,
and the more I try to stifle it, the more I laugh.
Tears come out of my eyes.
Christmas makes me weak.

So, whatever your religion or non-religion is, Merry Dang Christmas!
You don't have to go to church if you don't want to.
I probably won't, but I might watch Midnight Mass on television,
and I'm not even Catholic.
It's all part of the pageantry that is my holiday,
and I plan to eat too much, mellow out, and enjoy the feeling.

Call me on your holiday and I'll join you,
but listen...
What I'm saying to you right now is this:
"Merry Christmas to all good people."

Jack Blanchard

© 2007.

Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan.

Grammy Nominees. Billboard Duet of the Year.
Home page: http://jackandmisty.net.
Facebook: http://facebook.com/jackandmisty.
Email: jackandmisty@gmail.com.
VIDEOS: http://youtube.com/jackandmisty

CHRISTMAS ENOUGH Jack Blanchard's Column December 8, 2020

Thousands of readers around the world

CHRISTMAS ENOUGH

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the park,
One trailer was leaky, and covered with tarp.
On the wall were two cards, where you taped them up.
By the light of a candle, I poured us a cup.

Our tree on the table, was scrawny and thin…
A foot and three quarters of plastic and tin.
The carolers sang on our clock radio,
It’s the thought, after all, that counts, as you know.

The snow on the window, the smell of the pine,
Were sprayed from a can, but we didn’t mind.
No money, no shopping, no last minute rush.
Christmas with love
is Christmas Enough.
*     *     *     *

OLD SONGS AT CHRISTMAS

Some of my friends don't like Christmas music.
I love it.
I can understand how Christmas songs seem corny to some people,
but they have melody, harmony, and words,
which is more than a lot of today's music.
Anyway, I love Christmas music for completely different reasons.

This is the most emotional season of the year,
and those songs bring back powerful memories,
both happy and unhappy, but packed with emotion.
The ghosts of past Christmases often blur my vision in December.

My family was a partying bunch...
each holiday an excuse for all the relatives to get together and have a special time.
Even my grandparents would dress in outrageous Halloween costumes,
and on July 4th's we would drive the neighbors nuts with fireworks.
New Years Eve meant champagne and "blind robins". ..
and on and on.

Later in my life I experienced some very rough Christmases,
some even tragic,
and also some wonderful times with Misty and the small family we had left.
Every experience at this time of year is magnified and extreme
in my memory.

Hearing the old songs at Christmas makes me happily sad.
They evoke feelings I don't even understand,
and yet it's my favorite time of the year.
My steady guy cracks right down the middle,
and my sentimental guy takes over.

"It's a Wonderful Life" was on TV the other night.
We watched something else because we've seen it so many times.
The show we were watching ended early and Jimmy Stewart was still on,
so we decided to see the last hour of it.
We both sat there like idiots with lumps in our throats
and tears in our eyes as George Bailey got his life back.

Christmas makes me weak, I guess.
A good kind of weakness.

Jack Blanchard

Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan.

Grammy Nominees

Billboard Duet of the Year

Home page: http://jackandmisty.net.
Facebook: http://facebook.com/jackandmisty.
Email: jackandmisty@gmail.com.
VIDEOS: http://youtube.com/jackandmisty