Welcoming the Christmas season
Finally the holiday season matches the calendar. In my not so humble opinion Santa Claus, elves and reindeer should stay in the attic until after Thanksgiving. It takes some people an entire month or more to decorate for Christmas. I am not one of those people.
This weekend is the time for two of Madera’s premiere holiday celebrations. The Sunrise Rotary hosts its Tree’s for Charity each year the first Saturday of December. This festive dinner dance raises money for local charities through its silent auction of decorated wreathes and a live and lively auction of holiday trees.
As I see the words holiday trees written on my computer screen it feels like someone hit my politically correct bone with a hammer. Imagine what it feels like when you bang your funny-bone on a piece of furniture. Or better yet have you ever hooked your little toe on a table leg on a cold morning? The whole concept of political correctness feels like that. Translate that into a metaphoric pain and that is how I feel about referring to Christmas as the holidays. It is merry Christmas not happy holidays, dang it, if that offends you, get over it.
On Sunday evening the Madera County Historical Society debuts its Christmas decorations.
The museum will be open to the public 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, Dec. 5 through 9 and Dec. 11 through 16. Admission is $2 per person or $5 per family. Enjoy the spirit of Christmas with a family outing to the museum.
According to Google the winter holidays include: World AIDS Day, Dec. 1; Hanukkah, Dec. 24 through Jan. 1; Winter Solstice, Dec. 21; Christmas Day, Dec. 25; Boxing Day, Dec. 26; Kwanzaa, Dec. 26 through Jan. 1; New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, and New Year’s Day, Jan. 1.
Religious celebrations include Saint Nicholas Day (Christian), Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexican), St. Lucia Day (Swedish) and Three Kings Day/Epiphany (Christian).
I promise I won’t get my knickers in a twist if a person of a different faith wishes me a happy whatever it is they celebrate.
Christmas lights are going up all over town. The first decorated house in my neighborhood belongs to Gene and Karan Blocker. As I turned up their street that first evening and every time since I am delighted with the colored lights on the trees and the house.
Thanx for the view. I always spell thanks with an X because I am so fond of the letter.
Not everybody gets to have their name end in an X. I have a friend on Facebook named Tami Jo Cox. We met because we are both big Stephen King fans. King and Peter Straub have written a pair of science fiction/fantasy books about parallel universes. In these books there are characters called Twinners. The premise being there are duplicates of many people in this alternate reality. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska, a place about as far removed from Madera as possible. If not for Facebook we would never have met.
One of the things I learned the first Christmas I worked at The Madera Tribune is we should never, ever try to spell Christmas as Xmas. Supposedly spelling it Xmas in some way takes Christ out of Christmas. This was 1995. Who knew that by the year 2017 using the word Christmas at all in so-called polite society would create such a firestorm?
There are too many people invested in perpetrating evil and the destruction of the American way of life. Senseless mass shootings and bombs have terrorized our citizens.
May the holiday season bring you peace and love.
Have a great weekend.
• • •
Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.
