As a holiday gift to myself I write a Season’s Greeting, print it on appropriate stationery and send copies to my special people. Not that some people are special and others are not but certainly some are more special than others. When or where I read it I can’t say but reliable research indicates that we (humans) can maintain a limited number of personal relationships, about 100, give or take. It seems maintaining a personal relationship requires a time/energy investment and we can only spread ourselves so thin. My gift to me makes me take time to reflect on my more special people, even if it lasts only long enough to write a short remark, sign my name and stuff the envelope.
This is a good place to discriminate between my special people and others who share my place in time, who do meet the relationship requirement but don’t measure up otherwise. After all, not all relationships bear fruit. I have beaucoup special people and we don’t have to curry the other’s favor. Our backstory includes chapters and verse that circumvent the need for maintenance.
I’ve been working on my Season’s Greetings for 2024. The writing and printing are finished, all the envelopes are stamped and addressed. Later today I will begin the time consuming part, taking my time to remember what makes that person so special, then be thinking of them, make a comment and sign my name. That is the gift. In that moment I realize how wonderful this life has been and what a dreadful place this would have been if not for them and our special connection.
In the past 30 years especially, I have embraced the fall season with all of its holidays as my Holiday Season and I try in my own way to celebrate them all. For as long as humankind has been tracking the sun’s arc and the corresponding seasons, autumn has been a time of anticipation as well as a time of plenty. So they celebrated the bounty of summer and prepared for the long-dark-cold. Thanksgiving fills that breach now. Christians would have it be a religious observance but gratitude and dependance on natures whims don’t need a god to appreciate our place in the natural order.
The oldest, longest observed holiday across human history is celebrated just a few weeks later. Winter Solstice might slip by unnoticed with all the hype on Christmas. The sun’s arc had been sinking lower in the south since early summer and the winter-cold was in close pursuit. Prehistoric cultures watched closely. The time of harvest plenty was long past and they needed evidence if not a harbinger of better things to come. When the sun’s arc stops sinking and begins to climb again it signals the return to longer, warmer days and shorter nights. It was a time to take courage and endure but better times were on the way. Solstice falls around December 20 or 21 since before we had a calendar. Its close proximity to Christmas is no coincidence. In the churches zeal to convert pagans they positioned the birth of Christ to coincide with Solstice. Reframing the holiday under false pretense to draw pagans into the church was devious but it worked. The biblical account had Jesus born when sheep were in the field, when Romans paId taxes in the cities of their birth. That would be in the spring. The Papacy knew that but was much more concerned with converting pagans than historical accuracy. I still celebrate Christmas but not the ‘Prince of peace’ story. I like the music, the tradition of exchanging gifts and in its own way the warm feelings that announce the onset of bitter cold.
With my family scattered I will break bread with a few friends on Thanksgiving day but it’s a long, four day weekend and I am trying to hatch a plan for a roadtrip. My thinking now is to spend the Friday, Saturday & Sunday in NW Arkansas, exploring those tourist towns without the tourists. I’ll take my camera and see what unfolds. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m still thinking, still going over the maps.
This is a good place to discriminate between my special people and others who share my place in time, who do meet the relationship requirement but don’t measure up otherwise. After all, not all relationships bear fruit. I have beaucoup special people and we don’t have to curry the other’s favor. Our backstory includes chapters and verse that circumvent the need for maintenance.
I’ve been working on my Season’s Greetings for 2024. The writing and printing are finished, all the envelopes are stamped and addressed. Later today I will begin the time consuming part, taking my time to remember what makes that person so special, then be thinking of them, make a comment and sign my name. That is the gift. In that moment I realize how wonderful this life has been and what a dreadful place this would have been if not for them and our special connection.
In the past 30 years especially, I have embraced the fall season with all of its holidays as my Holiday Season and I try in my own way to celebrate them all. For as long as humankind has been tracking the sun’s arc and the corresponding seasons, autumn has been a time of anticipation as well as a time of plenty. So they celebrated the bounty of summer and prepared for the long-dark-cold. Thanksgiving fills that breach now. Christians would have it be a religious observance but gratitude and dependance on natures whims don’t need a god to appreciate our place in the natural order.
The oldest, longest observed holiday across human history is celebrated just a few weeks later. Winter Solstice might slip by unnoticed with all the hype on Christmas. The sun’s arc had been sinking lower in the south since early summer and the winter-cold was in close pursuit. Prehistoric cultures watched closely. The time of harvest plenty was long past and they needed evidence if not a harbinger of better things to come. When the sun’s arc stops sinking and begins to climb again it signals the return to longer, warmer days and shorter nights. It was a time to take courage and endure but better times were on the way. Solstice falls around December 20 or 21 since before we had a calendar. Its close proximity to Christmas is no coincidence. In the churches zeal to convert pagans they positioned the birth of Christ to coincide with Solstice. Reframing the holiday under false pretense to draw pagans into the church was devious but it worked. The biblical account had Jesus born when sheep were in the field, when Romans paId taxes in the cities of their birth. That would be in the spring. The Papacy knew that but was much more concerned with converting pagans than historical accuracy. I still celebrate Christmas but not the ‘Prince of peace’ story. I like the music, the tradition of exchanging gifts and in its own way the warm feelings that announce the onset of bitter cold.
With my family scattered I will break bread with a few friends on Thanksgiving day but it’s a long, four day weekend and I am trying to hatch a plan for a roadtrip. My thinking now is to spend the Friday, Saturday & Sunday in NW Arkansas, exploring those tourist towns without the tourists. I’ll take my camera and see what unfolds. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m still thinking, still going over the maps.
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