Merry Christmas!

(Photo by Linda Hughes.)

So here we are, at long last; Christmas Day.
Kind of like Election Day, signifying the end of mud-slinging potshots, where sure winners, like Chuck Schumer, trumpet their “Just Folks” image.
I remember passing Schumer once in a Rochester St. Patrick’s Day parade. He had got hold of a microphone, and was making a complete fool of himself. —“Just Folks” would never do that.
Just like Election Day, except no longer would we hear frenzied ads exhorting us to “spend-spend-spend!”
Most annoying was the screaming torrent of jewelry ads, implying not buying jewelry for your sweetie was a cardinal sin.
One-after-another pretty young girls are stunned by handsome young hunks opening a tiny box shielding a diamond engagement ring.
“Divorced in six months,” I always shout.
The TV news was celebrating the resurgence of Christmas spending.
“The American consumer is back,” it said. “Buying things they don’t need.”
(It actually said this.......)
I keep driving a Nikon D100 digital camera.
More recently available is the Nikon D300.
I haven’t gotten one. I feel my D100 is fine for what I do.
Does that mean I’m a stick-in-the-mud, a drag on the economy?
I never buy anything I don’t need; e.g. a speedboat or a Corvette.
A while ago my wife and I were discussing our credit-rating.
“I don’t think it’s that good,” I said.
“Why not?” my wife said. “We pay the full outstanding balance every month.”
“Which is why we’re not that good,” I said. “We aren’t using it like most credit-card users. We don’t have a massive outstanding debt.”
So what do aging retirees like us do, with relatives all far away?
My wife’s mother lives in a retirement-center in Florida. Her brother also lives in Florida.
In my case, both my parents are gone, and my siblings are spread all over the East Coast, from south Florida to Boston.
We live in western New York, hundreds of miles from anyone.
Just about every relative is an airline flight.
We didn’t celebrate Christmas much; really haven’t since my stroke.
We managed to get a tree up for a year or two afterward, but nothing since.
The stroke was over 17 years ago.
We didn’t get our outdoor Christmas lights up this year. The weather was uncooperative. —Too cold.
I managed to get our window-candles up, but that’s inside.
Our aging neighbor across the street, in his 70s, didn’t get his anorexic tree-bear decorated as Santa, like last year, as illustrated above.
A few weeks ago my hairdresser asked about Thanksgiving.
“Came and went,” I responded.
What a drudge; a Scrooge.
“We roasted a turkey-breast, and shared it with our dog,” I said.
I noticed the Christmas-cards from my brothers all came from their wives.
We also never got a card from my baby-sister.
Surely my blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, was utterly swamped policing his beloved Porta-Johns.
Our cards were done by me. I managed to wedge it in amongst the blizzard of errands and medical appointments. —Although some cards were sent Christmas-Eve.
As usual, there was the annual bounce of the Christmas-card to my sister’s daughter.
I supposedly corrected her address last year, but it bounced yet again.
For this I was loudly excoriated as a ne’er-do-well, consistent with my politics, my computer-platform, and motorcycle, all of which are of-the-Devil.
I’m a Democrat, a “Liberial,” I use an Apple Macintosh, and I don’t ride a Harley. —All signifying rebellion. (Gasp!)
So what do we do on Christmas Day?
We take our dog to nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) for a long walk.
To go “hunting;” just like every other Saturday.
After that, I’ll pump up the tires on our CR-V, with my wimpy little tire-pump that’s a disgrace.
I don’t need a giant 150-pound-per-square-inch gas-station air compressor to pump up tires.
Which makes me a drag on economic recovery!
I’m not lining the pockets of Republican fat-cats.

• My wife of 43 years is “Linda.”
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• My neighbor’s “anorexic tree-bear” is a tree-trunk carved into a bear with a chainsaw. It’s extremely thin.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.)
• “Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. (Recently it’s “liberila” or “libieral.”) —He once criticized my tire-pump as “wimpy.” (He has a giant 150-pound-per-square-inch gas-station air compressor.)
• The “CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.