Blog Archive/December 2008

December 24, 2008

Where Do You Turn When You're Down on Christmas Eve?

It's Christmas Eve and I'm feeling homicidal. It's been less than three months since my closest friend, Loren, has died and I've been reduced to a life of bare necessity--a slow walk with the dead. I actually want to kill something. My cat irritates me. I shove the cat with my foot. I throw a full glass of water in his face and run out of the apartment. Shit, I've lost it. Despite the freezing temperatures and my seriously out-of-shape body, I run along the river, desperate to release some of this violence in my veins. Soon I am standing on the steps of Saints Peter and Paul, a small church by the Hudson River in Hoboken, N.J. It seems the obvious choice...

Read Ondine Galsworth's Christmas Eve Blues.

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December 23, 2008

What the Cratchit Family Can Teach Us About Christmas

The other night I watched "A Christmas Carol" on TV for the zillionth time. And, as usual, I discovered something new to think about. In the past, I'd always felt sorry for the Cratchits, who were so desperately poor even though they were rich in love. I mean, it's great to take the Tiny Tim approach to life, but while you're at it God, couldn't you make that goose a little fatter, so the kids wouldn't have to pick the bones? And throw in enough eggs and flour so that Mrs. Cratchitýs famous Christmas pudding would be big enough for seconds?

This time, though, I was struck by how happy the Cratchits really were, and how, precisely because they had so little, everything meant so much.

Read Mary Beth Crain's Christmas Gifts of Long Ago.

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