Holidays? Are you kidding?

Yes, we are all stuffed and we are all planning on eating nothing but salad and raw carrots for the next two weeks.  The inauguration of the 2010 holiday season has arrived and I hope you were all thankful for something or someone.

The holidays are, to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times.  We love them for what they should be and what we historically (or hysterically) have envisioned them to be.  On the other hand we occasionally hate them for the disappointment they cause and for the reality that they often force us to face.  We get through them, sometimes alone, sometimes sullenly or, if we are lucky, with fleeting feelings of happiness and contentment.  Much like life in general, actually.

I know no one who doesn't have a sad holiday tale to tell.  But I also don't know anyone who doesn't have at least one great Hallmark-card memory, some moment on which all holiday hopes are hung.  Thankfully we have learned to embellish such moments and downplay the sad ones; the human condition is to forget bad and remember good. ("One for bad, two for good" as Rain Man would say.)   But it still doesn't make the holiday season any less daunting and frightening for thousands of folks who are simply struggling to survive.

Yikes!  Here it is not even December 1st and I am rambling on about the approaching Christmas season.  Clearly it is looming large in my small mind, but I will save the rest of that ramble for the days closer to the actual holidays.

When I started this blog I was hitting the road with Cooper.  Some of you might be looking forward to the next leg of that journey because reading about my at-home adventures isn't  terribly interesting.  No worries: more road trips are in the offing.  Don't know where or when but soon.  In the meantime you will have to be satisfied with local jaunts.  Besides, who really is reading this blog anyway?  Perhaps no one (and please do not feel compelled to respond to that question) and if that's the case, that's fine.  It is as much for myself as for anyone else.