More Christmas!

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

Christmas, as I’m sure you’ll recall, fell on a Wednesday this year, which is just a really awkward day for it honestly. It’s right in the middle of the week. While it might not matter to some folks, ideally it would fall in such a way as to create an extended holiday, like maybe on a Friday or a Monday, or even a Tuesday where a lot of people could sneak in an extra day off on Christmas Eve and make a four-day holiday out of it (and then maybe even repeat the phenomenon on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day.

But alas, Wednesday it was. And you know what? We’re making it work. Notice I said “making” instead of “made”… that’s because for us, Christmas isn’t over. No, we’re doing it “Hanukkah” style this year. Christmas kicked off on Tuesday, with a little get-together with friends and our church’s annual

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Christmas Eve service. Then it was back home to get everything ready for Santa Claus to come, which, by the way, he apparently still does even if your kids are pushing 30, if you didn’t know.

Then on actual Christmas, we headed over to Memphis to watch the grandson open his Christmas presents from Santa and then loaded everything up to go over the proverbial hills and through the woods to Grandmother’s house for “Christmas on the Hill” as we call it.

Oh, but that’s not all. We’re continuing the fun this weekend. You see, there’s a whole “nother” side of the family that we have to Christmas with, and that will be on Saturday. I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve got as many aunts and uncles and cousins and those “in-laws and outlaws” that are always getting in on the holiday scene. Don’t get me wrong, the more Christmas the better b ut we’re flirting with “Ho!

Ho! Ho!-ing all the way into 2025 at this point.

But I’m going to enjoy it while I can. I mean, my wife and I are really right in the middle of our families generation wise. I’m 51, she’s, well a little younger (hint, she’s hitting a pretty significant age next May). She’s still actually got two great-grandparents still living, and all the “kids” we watched grow up now have kids of their own and it’s becoming harder and harder to get everyone together for the holidays, and eventually the older generation will be gone and the younger ones will in all likelihood be splitting off to form their own family circles and so on and so forth the way it has always happened.

But in the meantime, I hope you’re having a happy holiday, and stay safe out there!