Christmas remembrance

On this, what is probably my last Christmas, I'm remembering when I was a little boy who still believed in Santa Claus, lying in my bed on Christmas Eve listening for the sound of hoof beats on the roof, knowing that when I woke up in the

I'm in the middle. This was on Christmas Eve.

morning my brothers and I would go downstairs with our parents and find things we wanted and had asked for and other things we hadn't asked for but wanted anyway wrapped in bright paper under the tree in the living room of our house in Strafford, Pennsylvania. This was over fifty years ago now.
The lights on the tree would be on. Some of them blinked. Outside, it was still dark because we had arisen so early. The colors of the tree's lights reflected on the ceiling and transformed the room into a magical place, as magical as the idea of gifts appearing from nowhere while we slept. 
We'd rip open packages while our parents looked on, beaming. When we were done, my father, often, or my mother would go into the kitchen and start cooking us all a warm breakfast.

A Very Loser Christmas

Last night, aka Christmas Eve, the Complete and Total Loser went to a Chinese restaurant with a friend. The two had wanted to go to a large and popular place but it was so crowded (Jews) that they went to a smaller place down the road. They got there around 6:15. As their meal progressed, they noticed that there was just one person working in the restaurant, a woman, and two cooks in the kitchen. Call outs,

This is the fortune the Loser's fortune cookie had on Christmas Eve. Honest.

apparently. An hour later, when they were ready to go, it had gotten busier and over a dozen diners were waiting to be seated. They saw a table of other diners bus their own table, so they did the same, and a couple of other tables around them, cleaning them off and setting them with paper place mats with the Asian zodiac on them, napkins, forks, spoons and water glasses. A family that had four teenage girls with them really took to the task and did several more tables. They paid by just leaving the money where the waitress would find it , and massively over tipped. The food was good, after all.

Appropriate

My father's service will be tomorrow, December 22. This year, that's the shortest day of the year. Perfect timing. It should remind me that the days will lengthen from now on, but I know that there is still a net loss of heat in the norther hemisphere and that many colder days lie ahead.

My mother visits my father after an operation on Christmas Eve, 2010.