Winter Time
© 11.27.07 By Rory Peterson
Ah, winter. What better time to sit back and consider the year's accomplishments, trials and lessons. It is also a good time to look forward to another year in which to utilize all your past experiences. But then, the year isn't over quite yet either. There still remains ample opportunity to glean wisdom from the waning month.
For instance, you should have shoveled the walk yesterday after it stopped snowing and before it began to warm slightly before freezing again last night. This would have saved you from a startling and painful encounter with the resulting sheet of ice between you and your car. Nevertheless, chiropractors must buy Christmas presents just like every one else, and the contribution was likely much appreciated.
Nevertheless, there are lots of other things to be happy about this time of year: like Christmas caroling. You can get together with a group of close friends or family and tramp about the neighborhood terrorizing people with your bass voice attempting a range intended for a tenor. Why does it seem that most Christmas carols are written for the Vienna Boys Choir?
I remember one particularly cold winter in which the song book I was holding froze to my hands. Without thinking, I ripped the copy of Traditional Christmas Carols from my palm; the full color print remained a second skin for several weeks after. It was rather convenient though. Nothing beats a line from We Three Kings Of Orient Are as a snappy comment in any dry conversation.
At any rate if you live anywhere in the Snow Belt and you plan to do much traveling, you ought to look into getting some snow tires. Nothing ruins an otherwise relaxing trip quite like a power pole decorating your front bumper. If you prefer, you can simply purchase a set of chains for your vehicle, and install them whenever a storm threatens to dump four or five feet of snow on the ground. I would recommend removing them after the immediate need passes. (In other words, when bare pavement dry as a bone, appears.) Just the other day I was out walking when I detected what sounded like a low flying prop plane getting louder as it came closer. It turned out to be a Dodge mini van running with chains on the bare pavement. I wondered if the vehicle's stereo had the speaker capacity necessary to be audible over the noise.
One thing that's great about this time of year is all the money you can spend while feeling less guilty than any other time of year. When you roll up to the checkout line in Wal-Mart with three shopping carts threatening structural failure, the cashier simply cracks her gum and beeps it all through.
"That will be one thousand, five hundred sixty seven dollars and ninety six cents, please."
To which you reply by developing a strange and immediate neurological condition requiring instant medical assistance. The cashier doesn't even miss a beat:
"We have a holiday special on our lay away program, that department is right over there." Crack, crack. Beep, beep.
Well, so much for staying debt free. Heck, when I was a little guy, we kids were happy with a pair of socks that weren't hand me downs from an older sibling. If we'd known what a lot of other kids received for Christmas, we would have assumed that their parents were either bank robbers, or had just won the lottery. It gave you a sense of superiority though. Christmas had nothing to do with getting the latest in electronic gadgets, X box games, or whatever else those bank robbing parents had access to. It made it easier to focus on the original intent of the Christmas season when there were not scads of toys sitting about that are usually destined for abandonment a few weeks after the holidays anyway.
So as you rush about in preparation for Christmas, and dodge the winter weather, take a few minutes once in a while to reflect on the original purpose of the holidays, and how it should affect your life. Until next time…
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