Merry Christmas to All Y’all and Fare-thee-well to 2019

Hello, my dears, it has been a while.  I have missed you all.  But in the interests of not blathering a bunch of personal details to the Internet, I shall forego explanations and proceed to the Main Point of the Post.

At least, I would do that if it had one of those.  But since it doesn’t and is kind of all over the place, why don’t we start by blathering a bunch of personal details to the Internet?  (Not explanations, though.  I was serious about foregoing those.)  Won’t you join me in taking a nostalgic end-of-the-year look at all the wonderful discoveries and happenings of my 2019?

Number one, I started a blog! (This, of course, will be news to all of you.) And it turns out that I really enjoy blogging?  It’s so cool to share your thoughts with people and then have them share theirs back, and vice versa, and like, just…wow? (It also turns out that I’m way more terrible than I ever expected at posting regularly and keeping up with things, but let’s focus on the positives here.)

My sister and I got charged by a runaway cow. There we were, leisurely driving up a back road, when we realized that the animal in question was galloping straight at us. Fortunately, she was a very chill runaway cow and turned off the road into a field when she saw we were in her way.

Sometimes you have to cut down five trees to get the one you actually wanted to fall. This discovery was made courtesy of my dad and his chainsaw.

Present tense is not always evil. It usually is, but not always.

My sister is Palestrina. We did a fair bit of arranging together this year (mostly a cappella Christmas music), and whenever I’d throw in some dissonance, my sister would be like, “No, no, that sounds bad! What about this?” and then play me a nice major triad.  To which I said, “That can be the next note, so it’s satisfying when it resolves.” To which she said, “Why can’t it be both notes?” To which I said, “Because consonance, consonance all the time is boring!” To which she said, “No, it’s pretty!” To which I said, scornfully, “All right, Palestrina.”  She didn’t know who Palestrina was, and at first she thought this was an insult. Now, though, having learned better, she preens when I call her that.

And, speaking of Christmas (which I think we were? indirectly?), this is a Very Special Time of Year.

Snow is falling. Trees are invading living rooms. Clumsy fingers are threading cranberry-popcorn strings. Stockings are being hung.  Doors are slamming in nosy sisters’ faces. The overeager are being condescendingly told, “Now you may listen to Christmas music, since Thanksgiving is behind us.”

The scent of Christmas cookies! The tart fragrance of just-opened oranges! The chilly presence of Marley’s ghost! Rudolph makes rash decisions, Danny Kaye pretends to break his leg, and George Bailey charms everyone but me. Does the movie live up to its titular adjective? Is Jimmy Stewart as brilliant in the part as one would expect? I do not know. Perhaps I shall never know. Somehow my family has managed to watch this iconic film multiple times, but never when I am around. (Not that I’m bitter or anything.)

Around Christmastime, besides lots of fun traditions, one tends to get reflective. I have been reflective about a little matter having to do with the proper method of expressing holiday wishes. See, I have been informed that at this time of year in bonnie olde Scotland (and, presumably, other regions of the U.K.), they do not wish each other, as we do here in the States, a merry Christmas. No, no, my dear Watson. In bonnie olde Scotland it is “happy Christmas!” and what do you Americans want to meddle with everything for?

Anyway, I have decided that I like the American version better. Now, you may think this is a peculiarly silly thing to be reflective about, and no doubt you are right, but I thought it was interesting. Why do we say “merry” instead of “happy”? For every other holiday, we conform. It’s happy Fourth of July, happy Valentine’s Day, happy Thanksgiving, happy New Year. Why is Christmas different?

Well, I don’t know – not officially, not etymologically.  But what other holiday is celebrating anything quite so wonderful as the birth of the Savior of the world? What other holiday marks quite so starkly the end of Despair and the beginning of Hope?

I mean, we’re talking an event so utterly bursting at the seams with joy that the sky over Bethlehem could scarcely hold the rejoicing of the angels. Forget happy. Happy doesn’t cut it. We ought to be merry, merry with the merriment of Eden restored, giddy like a kitten in its first spring, rapturous as a husband long lost in enemy territory coming home.

Much is said of peace at Christmastime, and rightfully so. The Prince of Peace was born in a Bethlehem stable. Heaven made its first move in the campaign to end the Earth’s long, sad war.

But peace is not the only thing we are offered. We are also offered a joy we have not known since before the Fall. We are given reason to be merry.

And so I intend to be merry. Because and in despite of the holiday and family obligations crowding in thick and fast just now, the figuring and preparing that must be done for next semester, and the fact that I’d really, really like to finish my novel.

I’ll see y’all in the new year, the new decade in fact (gee whiz, where does time go??), at which time maybe I’ll have a working laptop again.  And at which time I will hopefully get busy catching up on tags, flapping my jaw about some of the books I read this year, and finally finishing some of those discussion posts I’ve been meaning to write for forever.

Have a very merry Christmas, y’all. Peace.