Lighting Up the House

AS THE SUN ROSE behind dark clouds and heavy rain Christmas Eve, I realized that, so far, I have had perhaps the most pleasant christmas seasons of my life, or close to it. In fact, I cannot remember even a single unhappy Christmas season in my entire life, which will reach seventy years in April. As far as I can recall. They've all been joyful, including this one. Not one single, dark, depressing Christmas. I consider myself very fortunate. I bought my own presants this year, for the most part. That's fine. A brand new beautiful wooden floor in my house to replace the twenty year old worn out permanently stained pest infested carpet. Forty three hundred dollars, worth every penny. They did it all in a single day, amazingly. A new set of tires. A nice new air mattress which a lady at the senior center blew up for me, and on which I am now comfortably sleeping, and, last but certainly not least, a brand spankin' new forty three inch flat screen TV, whci to me seems huge, on accounta it is replacing a thirty three. Also,some other nice gifts, for others. A shiny new trinket shaped like a dragon, for my keychain. A plastic drinking container filled with trail mix. A plate full of delicious cookies. Some Christmas cards. I am grateful for all of it. Not long ago, while dining, having lunch, as I do daily during the week at the my local senior center, where the kitchen staff is excellent and the food delicious, I mentioned to some friends that as far as I can remember, I have never had a bad meal in a restaurant, ever. As I keep thinking about it, I think that is true. About a month ago I ate at a nice family restaurant with the entire congregation of my chucrh, about fifteen people, a gift from the cuhurh, which I thought was very nice. I thought the chicken fried steak might have been a bit tough, and might have tasted a bit like licorice. But, overall, no problem. It was still a delicious meal, and free to boot. During our daily meals at the senior center, my friends and I spend a fair amount of time discussing the meal at hand and food in general, which is easy to do when in the middle of a delicious meal. As I extend my reasoning and reflection to other aspects and portions of my life, I seem to arrive at the same basic conclusion; that, on the whole its all been good, very good. I don't have any serious regrets about my education, my career, my tennis game, or my love life, over the course of my life. This Christmas season is moving along fast, like they all do, and will be over soon. I started early, with the house lights, as always. I strung some of them up on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and added some more every day for about a week, until the house became very brightly lighted up. I became quite proud of them. In my neighborhood, only a few houses decorate for Christmas. So proud was I of my artwork that when the senior center loaded up the bus for the annual Christmas lights tour, I requested, believe it or not, that they drive by my house, which they dutifully did, twice. The only problem was that two other members of the tour, perhaps thinking themselves being slighted, insisted on the spot that we drive by their houses as well. I thought it was a boring waste of time, but at least I learned my lesson. I will probably begin to take it all down shortly before New Year's Day. My childhood Christmases were a beautiful Christmas tree, with many presents under it,school plays and concerts,food and friends. In 1968, when I was thirteen, I watched on television as three astronauts circled the moon on Christmas Eve, while I was sick on the couch with the flu, until Christmas Day, when, miraculously, I awakened very early, fully recovered, feeling great, ready to start opening all those beautiful, brightly wrapped presents.