To Those Who Make the Holiday Bright
A Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. The old La Habra Heights wreath is on my front door, having once again been refurbished. It doesn’t look quite as exuberant as the year I made it, but what does? The yellow and orange birds seem sadly molting out of season, but they still perch insouciantly on the evergreen boughs. That’s the Christmas secret. Keep your feathers fluffed, especially when the winter winds howl down the mountain passes.
A looped mohair afghan, light as soap bubbles, to Barbara Chandler, who works in the Lincoln Avenue Post Office in Pasadena. I went over there the other day to buy some stamps for Christmas cards (which, sadly, are mostly still in their boxes).
Peaches wanted to go with me although I can’t think why. She usually goes just to the market or to the Silver Poodle where Beverly grooms her strawberry blond coat. But she is ever an optimist and thinks every time we will go someplace delightful. She’s a brightly expectant little dog. Dumb but ever hopeful.
After I waited in line at the post office, when I finally reached the window, I discovered I had no money and no wallet with identification, just a checkbook. I told Barbara Chandler, who had never seen me before, of my sad plight and she looked at my upside-down checkbook with my name and address on each check. “Are you the writer?” she asked.
I always feel pompous saying that, but I managed to say, “Yes.”
Barbara said, “I always read your column.”
I said, “Oh, I’m glad. And I have my car registration in the glove compartment. Oh, and Peaches is with me.”
That did it. Good Barbara took my check for the stamps and I went out to the car, where Peaches was watching out the window for me and wearing her Vanna White smile, proving again that fluffy, golden bangs and a holiday grin will outclass a DMV registration when writing a check during Christmas week.
Joys of the season to my dear friend, Al Livingston, deputy director of the DMV, and I mean no disrespect to your great agency.
The best of the season and a crown roast topped with candied crab apples to the two lifeguards and the surfer who pulled that addled deer out of the ocean at Zuma Beach and took it to Latigo Canyon where I hope it has friends and family. Obviously, the deer snapped under the holiday pressure and thought, “The open sea is better than one more second in the gift-wrap line.”
The merriest of Christmases to motorcycle policemen and doctors and nurses who will work emergency rooms on this blessed night. And to teachers who had to take the class hamster home with them for Christmas vacation because if they didn’t, who would? And to the hamsters who have lived through another season of exuberant love from the second grade.
A crackling yule log and a noggin of mulled wine to everyone at the other night’s Pasadena Bar Assn. Christmas party and to the Caroling Company who made the cold night sweet with their music. I wish the jingling of sleigh bells to the bankers at my table who were pleasant and didn’t say a word I understood, so that I just smiled like Peaches.
May the Christmas star shine on caterers who will have to cook and serve someone else’s Christmas dinner before they do their own.
A silver bowl full of holly and poinsettias to the men and women who give up their own holiday to serve turkey dinner to people who have no homes, even as the parents of the holy child whose birthday we celebrate were homeless.
The glitter of the season to government agency workers who had their budgets cut this year, but who will march up the Hill and try again next year.
To Scout troop leaders and to men and women who try to show gang members there’s another way, the glow of the season.
The same to all the girls in their Christmas party dresses and the boys in their dinner jackets, achingly debonair and hoping they have enough money for the check.
To dog catchers who will look the other way and to dogs who have received Christmas groomings and feel silly, you look great, fellows.
To people who fight fires and fly helicopters and stand on flight decks and bring their birds home, a plum pudding fat as a miser’s pouch.
And to all of you who did it again, stood in the lines, stretched the money, sang the carols, wrapped the presents that suddenly seemed not quite right, don’t worry, honey, they’re great.
For all of you and those you love, may the sweet breaths of the animals in the hay around the manger perfume your Christmas and may the blessings of Jesus gentle the world and bring you courage and laughter on this day and all days. Merry Christmas.
