Happy Holidays! (Wish they were over...)

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in an old man's hat...

Well, the holidays are almost here, and since I've been MIA due to my pursuit of a penny or a ha'penny, I sneaked in to wish all of you a wonderful end of the year/winter solstice/christmas/hannukah/kwanzaa/whatchamacallit to you and your family. This is a joyful time of the year, but I think that it's also a tough time of the year for many. It's a time of stress, of anticipation, of missing those dear to us who passed away, of not having enough money to give the presents we want to give, of stretching ourselves thin in every way, of trying to get everything done and wanting to have everything come out lovely. It is a stressful damn time of the year. All you have to do is look at those around you.

Some people become traffic nazis, cutting you off, honking at you for any real or imagined thing, giving you all of .005 of a second to get going when the light changes to green before they flip you the bird through your rearview mirror, or scream at you because you took the parking space they wanted even though you had your blinker on for half an hour waiting for the other car to pull out. Other people become aggressive in stores or in shopping malls, stepping all over your cute "Vixen Red" polished toenails to get to the stuff that's on sale or to be the next person in line. Still others, while humming "Silent Night" under their breath, will treat you rudely in an office, or ignore you. Yes, those things happen during the rest of the year, but it is important to realize that at the end of the year it gets worse, and people are stretched out emotionally, financially and physically to the end of their ropes.

People, people let's remember that at least during this time of the year we should be more tolerant, more giving, more smiley-faced. It's like that email that I'm sure has gone around the world a quazillion times, the one that says that when someone cuts you off you don't know what catastrophe they are speeding from or to. Keep in mind that we are all human beings, we are all busy, overworked, (grossly) underpaid, and unless you are Donald Trump, Ted Turner or Bill Gates, we are all being exploited. Every person is someone's darling child, or someone's sweet mom or aunt or granma or dad or uncle or grandpa. And if they are orphans it's even more of a reason to treat them nicely because they have no one that they are special to. I know I'm ending a lot of sentences with prepositions but grammar be damned!

My thrust (that word always increases my readership for some weird reason) is this: Let's be nice to each other, or if you can't do nice then at least be polite. And let's keep doing this after the holidays and after New Year's Day. Let's do it all the time.

I hope you enjoy my sappy little Christmas post. I really do miss you all and am looking forward to reading you in 2007! Big Blogger Kisses to You, One and All!