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Merry Christmas and some long sentences
Kootenay Crust
By Ian Cobb
Op-Ed Commentary
A lone deer walks across a white field, pausing briefly to contemplate a spot on the ground, the thought of possible food controlling its mind.
It isn’t cold by usual standards; – 4 C. But the socked-in grey sky, still and silent, layers more isolation to an already lonely scene.
A creature I curse at during the summer months for snarfing everything lovely in our yard (simply doing what it does – eat to stay alive) once again becomes an igniter of my seasonal compassion.
Were I in a more cartoonish Dickensian mood, I could traipse out to that lonely but apparently well-fed whitetail with a nice ham sandwich and a bucket of milk and wish it a Merry Christmas. But I know it would rise on its hind legs and stove my skull in with a few flailings of its front legs. And then eat the sandwich and suck down the milk while my right leg twitches in the lonely snow. So bugger that noise.
Merry Christmas ya lilac and rose gobbling bastage!
There, phew; Christmas almost got hold of me.
Christmas Eve is a perilous time for we curmudgeons. Happy children almost make us smile; a friend’s pleasant greeting nearly elicits a likewise response; a Facebook meme causes the rusty workers in the tear duct department to snort inelegantly awake.
One to frown (remember, curmudgeon) on the gratuitous commercialization of Christmas, and hence be cudgelled daily post Halloween into a huff of seasonal dismissal, I am generally only visited by the Christmas spirit on Christmas Eve.
And true to that, I am not letting Donald Trump’s greasy ignorance bother me, nor am I going to let that mincing ass Justin Trudeau intrude on my merry. And you China – and your agent of western infiltration – Huawei – can hit the Ho Ho Ho highway and nary nudge my nerves.
Warmed by thoughts of my loved ones, near and afar, I shall not be driven into a snarling fit of gnashing teeth over the barking hypocrisy of those who claim to be Christians and as they bend Biblically during this holiest of times, they still rage at refugees for having to flee horrors we lucky North Americans can’t even dream about because we’re too sheltered and stuck into our devices looking for deals on second hand dresser drawers to develop thoughts on.
Contemplating the goodness that I see every day in the communities of the East Kootenay, thanks to service club and social service volunteers and workers, I refuse to be pulled down by the hate I see everywhere, especially on social media.
It’s freaking Christmas Eve; nuts to the nuts! Time for another really long sentence!
Knowing a three-ghost night awaits, where I shall be exposed to graphic re-enactments of shameful moments from my past, including the aerial frozen turkey incident of 1984 and the Christmas light disaster of 1988, and intrude in the here and now on people who would not appreciate me hovering in the bardo o’er their hearths, (what can you do – the ghost of Christmas present has always been into that thing) and then be mind-blown by a holy and wise epiphany right before waking up for a pee, I will not allow the injustices and wrongs aplenty of our world to cause a lag on my happy upload.
There is goodness everywhere; today we don’t have to look as hard thanks to the magic that still exists at Christmas.
May the spirit of Christmas find you in your way and time and may you know beyond the shadows of doubt that linger longer nowadays that your time on Earth and the souls you share that time with, is The Gift.
Merry Christmas.
– Ian Cobb is owner/editor of e-KNOW
