Deck the Halls

 

 

The holiday season is coming up. This year I am very acutely aware of the many families in the U.S. who are facing the problem of celebrating the Holidays without a loved one who is suddenly not there because of death, deployment to the Near East, or for some other reason. I am aware of the special benefit that children receive from these periodic family get-togethers with Mom and Dad and Aunt Bea and Uncle Bill or whoever. It is a bad time for those who are experiencing for the first time the absence of a loved one at Thanksgiving or Christmas or any of the traditional get-together times. For children it can be devastating.

As you have probably heard me say before I have spent during my parent's lifetime every single Christmas with them. I was an only child and it was important to them that I be there. So wars, my job, the Navy, my education, my travel never stopped me from being home at Christmas. I never missed a Christmas dinner with them while they were alive. And I am glad that I didn't.

And when I had children at home it was a big event. It was busy, rewarding, convivial and exhausting and expensive. After my children married and my parents died I spent my Thanksgivings and Christmases alone, and I spent them happily. But my attitude toward those holidays has changed in a way I think natural for my age and condition.

I still hope that all of my children and their families have family holidays, family traditions, holiday created beauty and happiness. I want that for you and your families. There is a natural time considering the arithmetic increase in the family, the dispersion of its members across the state and nation, and the facts of "in-law" claims and culture that seem to me to dictate a graceful transition in my role and contribution to the event. I have been undergoing that transition for several years. So please don't be disappointed by my absence from your Thanksgiving table, your Christmas celebration, your July 4th cookouts, your vacation trips or at various weddings.

I am not drawing away. By computer, by telephone, by letter I challenge you to find any one more communicative or less hesitant to offer advice counsel and admonition. I am very much in your lives and supportive of what you do. But I will be less and less visitative, and as time goes on I will be less of a gift giver since the necessity, or at least advantage, of making a fixed amount of money last until I die is more impressed upon me. When mother could no longer shop or cook large meals she literally erased Christmas and Thanksgiving from her mind - they did not exist. Be thankful for that capability on her part. She did the same thing with all of my sins and your sins and your children's sins.

I am in no way looking for a sad holiday season, or even a lonesome one. I charge each of you also to be communicative with me by phone letter, computer, or semaphore flag. I thrive on communication. This year I have already promised Danny that I will come by his house on Thanksgiving at dinner time, and unless there is ice on the road I will do so. But generally speaking, I will not do much holiday visiting anymore.

I expect to have a very thankful Thanksgiving. All of my family are at this time well and succeeding in life and facing its challenges. On Christmas it will hopefully be cold and I will build a big fire in the fireplace and stare into it remembering Christmases past, and those are good thoughts.

You know what a skilled and competent driver I am, but I notice that the freeways are getting narrower and the other drivers clumsier - almost belligerent. So when I go to Kerrville tomorrow for a one-day trip I will let Roger drive. He is ten years younger than I am. He and Denver and I are going. Denver is twenty-three days younger than I am.