The last movie mashup before Christmas, from my friend, Tom Gale . . .

Time is always against us and no time is this more apparent than during the holiday season.  It is ironic that the busiest holiday should fall so close to the shortest day of the year.  What’s up with that?  Wouldn’t it have been so much more sensible to put this time of year into summer when the days are long and there is plenty of extra sunlight around to make holiday preparations so much easier?  And without school in session and people already taking vacations, there would be plenty of time for being together and visiting and traveling and taking the holiday at a leisurely pace.  Someone messed up when they put Christmas on Christmas Day, or rather when they put it all in December and then to make matter worse stuck Thanksgiving right ahead of it, making this four weeks of hustle, bustle, and something else that doesn’t rhyme with either.  Sometimes it would be really nice to posses Kris Kringle’s apparent ability to fold the very fabric of space time to allow the localized black hole that would be scientifically necessary for delivering gifts to all the world’s households in a single night (and that’s assuming that the jolly old elf happens to have a completely accurate census of every corner of the Earth).  Federal bureaucrats take note: save money next census and just buy Santa’s list outright; I’m sure he’d be happy to black out the nice/naughty entries in the interest of protecting the innocent and an additional income source is always helpful even for Santa’s manufacturing and delivery operations.

The bottom line, though, is that the whole Christmas season is chock full of mystery, miracle, and magic.  Whether you are focused on the more secular elements of gift-giving and family and feasting and friendship, or the more religious elements of light in darkness and the birth of a soul savior so long ago and praise for the miracle of life out of death this is after all a fitting time of year for it reminds the heart that despite the long dead winter ahead new life is always waiting for us if we keep our doors open to it.  Such elements  would cease to have meaning in the midst of the long indolent and comfortable summer; they best serve us when we are looking the cold, harsh future square in the face as we do around this time of year.

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