Christmas Redux

Every year, I plan a great holiday season, probably because I love Christmas. But every year, that season comes faster and lasts a shorter amount of time. As a kid, I remember being shocked when I discovered that Christmas came once a year. In my childhood timeframe, it seemed that it only came every five years, and at random. Now, with my only child grown, the season has this eerie, duplicitous quality of arriving and ending very quickly with its latent, sad spirit hinting that it might never come again.

Jack scrolled through the television onscreen menu the other night and chose the “Frosty the Snowman” cartoon. I have some nostalgia for certain seasonal shows, but this one is a particularly cheesy attempt to add more plot to a basic song, along with a sleazy and completely fabricated magician. Plus the animation is flat and cheap. We sat there and glared at it for about 20 minutes before I asked, “Is there some reason we’re watching this?”

Jack said, “I thought you liked it.”

“Nope.”

“Thank God.”

I guess it might be a sad commentary that the traditional festive movie for my son and I is “The Ref,” with Dennis Leary, so tonight, once again the empty nester and grass widow, I tried to watch “White Christmas.” Suspending disbelief is getting tougher and tougher, I discovered. For example, for years I’ve been trying to convince myself that Rosemary Clooney was attractive enough to land Bing Crosby, only to finally admit that she had a better chance with My Friend Flicka. Then, while Bing croons about counting his blessings, I have to struggle to snuff out visions of him drunkenly beating and berating his kids.

I can’t remember the name of the “sister” in the movie, the one with the incredibly pointy breasts, but when she tells Danny Kaye that he’s witty, handsome, and gay, I have to say, “Well three’s a charm.” I watched a Christmas television movie with Linda Hamilton this weekend that was so astoundingly schmaltzy that I stayed with it just for the shock factor.

Tonight I spent an hour on the phone with my Mom who wants assistance ordering television trays online for my sister. I tell her there are over two million hits for same. As I read her one description that fits her quite distinct specifications, she asks me if there are any other choices. Unfortunately for me, only one million, nine hundred and ninety-nine more options!

It’s the end of the year, and suddenly I’ve got work—lots of it, just as I planned for some official down time. Go figure. Maybe if I get a chance, I’ll do a holiday puzzle. Possibly that will get that old piney smell, pretty lights, magical feeling going. I doubt it.

Okay, so I stopped blathering about this subject long enough to watch (with tears welling) the scene where all the military men gather in Vermont to sing “We’ll follow the old man, wherever he wants to go . . .” to the old defunct general. I guess I feel the same way about Santa.