Paging Mr. Scrooge, Paging Mr. Scrooge

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Anyone else glad Christmas is over? I mean the commercialized, overhyped, gift-laden, guilt-packed part of Christmas.

No no no. Old trees should be tossed in lakes and ponds.

I may be sounding like Scrooge here, but Christmas is my least favorite holiday, although it has gotten easier over the years. It was not too long ago that Christmas required Clan Baker to be in three states over the holidays. That's some traveling.

This has been cut way back. Traveling this year was limited to 20 minutes South to my mom's new house in Tifton. Mo betta.

While I do not massively object to traveling, I want it to have some purpose in mind, not just going to get there. While I also enjoy seeing folks I only see once or twice a year, I prefer more reason for the drive.

The purpose for traveling, ideally, is the opportunity to put meat in the freezer. I'm not hugely particular about the meat either, land-based, water-based or semi-aquatic, I'm good to go. Lemme have a chance to shoot or catch something when I get done traveling and I'm happy.

Hang on. I'm reloading.

Anyway, I am still glad Christmas is over. I understand why suicides peak around the holiday season. It's supposed to be a time of family, reunion, joy and a coming together. Some folks can't manage that and it depresses them to the point of taking the final exit.

Christmas, increasingly, is becoming a time of excess. A time to go into debt, in more ways that one. I suspect most people gave gifts which originated in China. Not only did the givers deplete their personal account, they furthered the trade imbalance with China and continued to support the decline of the American economy. In a more roundabout way, these purchases also exacerbated the national debt.

Why do we need a holiday for this?

My dad and Ray Mercer were of the same mind about this. I agree with 'em. They said if you have an urge to give someone a gift, don't wait for a "special occasion." Give the gift immediately.

Think about it.

The elf who wanted to be a dentist

There are some parts of the holiday I do like. Such as the Christmas service last night at the state prison in my community. It was Standing Room Only. Not kidding. Every chair in the multi-purpose room had a butt and other people had to stand or sit on the floor. I sat on a table.

I like some of the songs. Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" just rocks. Other holiday songs make me want to climb the clock tower at the courthouse.

As a kid, Christmas also meant the one time a year we got to see Christmas movie specials. The stop-motion Rudolph, A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and others. We didn't have DVD, cable or satellite TV and streaming movies when I grew up. Didn't have video tape either. We had 3 TV channels, sometimes, and had to wait a whole year to see those Christmas classics.

Now that we can see these movies any time, it takes away from the specialness of the movie and the season. It just doesn't mean what it used to.

Now if all this makes me a Scrooge, I'll accept that nomenclature, but I suspect I've got plenty of company.