Awash In A Sea Of Stuff

This is what I am talking about.




Man, I'm I glad that's over. The totality of Christmas kind of sneaks up behind me and punches me in the stomach, usually toward midnight Christmas Eve. All of the spending, shopping, wrapping and eating hits me.

I was sitting Christmas Eve as we opened our gifts from one another, thinking this is a bunch of stuff we could have lived without, bought with money that might have found better uses and was more than most people on the planet will ever have. It seemed way over the top, stuff-wise.

As an aside, the best Christmas of my growing-up life was 1966, when we lived in California. My folks had no cash to speak of and no ability to borrow any. I got some underwear, socks and a pair of jeans. Plus I got a box of chocolate-cover cherries. I remember my mother apologizing for the meagerness of our Christmas, but my folks were sober for the only Christmas I recall, that is, until they gave up drinking in the late 1970's. Sobriety beats stuff anyday.

Back to now. There is also the matter of the leftovers. It is a tradition at Casa Sneed that the lovely Mrs. Sneed goes overboard on the desserts. Consequently, we have a half of a big tiramisu, an entire giant pumpkin pie from Costco, a bunch of coconut macaroons, candy, eclairs and some other stuff clogging up the refrigerator. While I am trying my best to clear it out, I may not be up to the job, plus my vows to myself to lay off the food have proven worthless thus far.

Another item lurking around after Christmas is cardboard, lots of cardboard. We have mandatory recycling here in our fair city, at least as near mandatory as they can make it. Actually, the mandatory part is that you must pay for recycling pickup whether you use it or not. My recycling bin is overflowing and I have a giant box sitting in the front room, waiting for me to find a place for it. The garbage container is stuffed full, even fuller than me, and there are bags on the ground. This is insane. Not to minimize natural disasters, but it feels like we are digging out from a really bad storm.

None of this is to say that Christmas is empty or meaningless or even that it is lacking anything, quite the contrary. It is full of joy , seeing our children and grandchildren happy and sharing time together. Gifts and food are good, but they accentuate the day, they don't make it. Sometimes the former gets trod upon by the latter.

It seems to me that the purpose of life is to do the best you can with the life you have. For a couple of hicks from the wrong side of the tracks, the lovely Mrs. Sneed and I have done okay. Christmas is a good time to take stock of that.


Merle.





Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky


Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor