And the Band Played On

Lighted Christmas trees can still be glimpsed through windows. Little
bulbs that would be white if lighted drip from eaves, emulating icicles
in temperatures that would melt ice during the day, re-freeze it at night.
Inflated Santas and grazing reindeer are stranded among the string after
string of colored lights that still outline windows, walls, and trees. They
have the lost and forlorn look of waiting, their blaze of glory ended,
time to crawl away unheralded into their almost year-long hibernation.

The poor children who were gifted and feted go quietly about their
business of living in poverty, conveniently forgotten except as adjuncts
to the warm glow still occasionally remembered by those who Helped
Make Christmas For Those Less Fortunate.

Walmart can take down their giant overhead posters showing smiling
people with new cell phones, jewelry, computers, children sitting in a
plastic car, all with the large words: "Be Bright". Took me a few minutes
to connect those words with one of the songs that kept erupting from the
radio if one didn't keep the dial moving. Your days will "Be Merry and
Bright" if you buy all this stuff, particularly if you buy it from Walmart.

Shredded wrapping paper and strands of tinsel lay across the glass
and plastic dead soldiers on the trash heap. The party's over.

There'll be another burst of merriment, real and artificial, as the year
grinds to a halt. Then the cold dawn. Then the credit card bills will roll
in. Bankruptcy courts will be crowded when the Piper cannot be paid,
even though the new laws have made it so much more difficult and
expensive that debtors will have to seek new loans, going even further
in debt, in order to file. The rate of home foreclosures, already the
highest in years, will accelerate.

One of the houses outlined in lights and flanked by several large
Christmassy figures is, according to notices in the newspaper, in
the midst of foreclosure now. And all the lights are lighted. A last
hurrah....

I lit a candle to celebrate the shortest day of the year. Now that
it's gone, each day will be seconds and minutes longer. Available
light, truly a gift.