Wishes for a Merry Christmas 2013

I’m returning to tradition this year and leaving monoblogue dark for Christmas. Hopefully you have much better things to do with your family than to be reading my website – it will be back Thursday.

Last year I informed you that I work on a peripheral basis with the retail industry, since writing and book sales don’t pay all my bills. This is now the third Christmas I’ve been involved in this, and maybe the “new norm” is that store traffic isn’t spectacular, but steady. Granted, this year I happened to not be working during the days immediately before the holiday so perhaps things picked up at the last minute. Honestly, the only stores which seemed to be doing great business out of those I do were GameStop and Toys R Us, probably because of the recently released PS4 and Xbox One. Seemed like a lot of people were investing in video games.

On the other hand, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart and our local mall were steady but not really as large as I’ve seen before. Of course, Target has its own set of problems these days.

Naturally we still have family and the original reason we celebrated the holiday to begin with as items to fall back on. I’ve noticed over the years that the stuff we buy is generally of a fleeting amusement – things which may eventually find their way to the back of the closet, break down, or otherwise fall from usefulness in a short time. But family is hopefully much more long-lasting, even if what seems to be an annual occurrence of global warming (in the form of a snow and ice storm) made travel to see those family members difficult or impossible. As a native Ohioan, I’m a veteran of a few Christmases where my intent to travel and see family were thwarted, such as the year the plans of turkey with the in-laws turned into frozen lasagna with my parents. 8″ of blowing snow will do that.

Of course, there was a time a couple thousand years ago where we all had a reason for hope thanks to the birth of our Savior, and that’s really what the celebration should be about. To that end, once again for your holiday listening pleasure I bring you my friends from Semiblind doing  ‘O Holy Night’. (You may have to goose the file and start Windows Media Player to get it to play, but it’s worth it.)

Merry Christmas to all of my friends and readers.