Faster than the speed of light

I now know what is faster than the speed of light, which is, for those of us rusty on the particulars, 186,000 miles/second. That's not really even a comprehensible number, given the circumference of the earth is nearly 25,000 miles. A bit of division finds that light would travel around it over seven times in a second.

What could possibly be faster? Time.

How can it be Christmas already? Didn't we just celebrate it? We had to say goodbye to beloved cat Pyewacket two days before Christmas last year. Has he already been gone that long?

We've been back from the most glorious trip for over four weeks. How can that be? Did the three weeks we were gone just evaporate? Where did they go? Just memories destined to fade?

And yet...

It seems another lifetime that I myself was a first-time mother. I look at the photos and wonder, who is that? Was that me?

The hours can be slow, the weeks quick, the years... faster than the speed of light.

The most used letters

Occasionally I run across a listing of the most-used letters in English. All I have to do is look at my laptop's keyboard to know the top ones.

My laptop and I are old friends (sometimes we quarrel) and I've worn off the following letters: E and A are practically gone. S and T are in terrible shape. D and N are followed closely by O and C. That surprises me a bit. L and F are showing wear. The SHIFT key is graying. I and T have tiny smudges smearing them.

And I know it's 4 days until Christmas. This should be a Christmas message. Or at the very least, a complaint about the winter solstice.

Just think: after tomorrow, the days start getting longer again.

And I wish everyone the Christmas of their dreams.

Memory Monday: It's not Christmas that's changed

Somewhere along life's way, Christmas seemed to change. I'd like to think it's because I matured and finally understood the joy of being the giver and not just the giftee, but that's not it.

My sister and I had fairy-tale childhood Christmases. Mother worked very hard to see that we got everything on our wish list and a few things that weren't. Black and white album photos show two little girls with an overabundance of things under the tree. I think she didn't have many merry Christmases as a child and she lived vicariously through us by making sure we did. After I was grown, and in a moment of melancholy, Daddy told me how she would scrimp and cut corners in order to get us things. I'd like to be sarcastic and say it would have been nice to have had more of her instead, but alas, we had plenty of that also. Mother managed it all.

Christmas changes when you move away from home, whether it be to college or on your own. Then, you come home to a house you didn't help decorate. You've grown beyond having a dozen packages under the tree and a big Santa-surprise on Christmas morning. It's sedate. The excitement is gone. You had to come home because the dorm was closed.

I don't think it revs back up until you have children of your own. Then, you can see Christmas again, but this time through their eyes. Sad to say perhaps, but my sons will probably say they didn't have fairy-tale Christmases, because Mother Scrooge didn't get them half the Sears catalog. I used to tell my younger son to just tear out what he didn't want.

But Mother got excited all over again. Having grown and left her, her daughters had redeemed themselves by presenting her with three grandchildren. She was once again in the giving business. This went on until her death when the youngest was in college.

Once our grandchildren came, our period of once-again sedate Christmases was over. They're still very young and not really into it yet (wait until next year), but there was excitement once the packages were torn open this year.

If you believe in Christmas, it would be sad to be alone on that day. But that's a state of mind, an attitude. You can be sad surrounded by a loving crowd of relatives. Christmas hasn't changed: not the reason for the Season, not the joy in celebrating. If your Christmas has changed, it's time to check the internal sensors and turn on the excitement meter once more.

A Good Will Christmas

If you thought the overabundance of Christmas at retailers like WalMart and Hobby Lobby was enough to stop you at the door, then you haven't been to your local Goodwill store. At least the one I visited yesterday put all other venues to shame.

Starting with the bare trees at the door and proceeding through Christmas porcelain odds and ends, to clear garbage bags stuffed with stuffed animals to knick-knacks still in their boxes--the store was a vision of North Pole rejects. Some had clearly been loved too much; others had been tossed due to neglect. There were strings of lights and boxes and boxes of balls and ornaments. After awhile, my eyes glazed over.

After Thanksgiving--you know, when it's the proper time to have all things Christmas--I think I'll clear my mind and go back. I hear a reindeer calling me--and I'm a sucker for a new to me reindeer... or two every year.

But it's not even Halloween!

In the spirit of setting my home aright for the double-duty it will perform the 4th week of November, I hauled down my scanty autumn and Thanksgiving decorations. In the past, I've collected turkeys, but the only two which have survived are a painted gourd one with a feather-duster tail and a metalwork fellow who appears anorexic. He has no fear of being on the table. Assorted pumpkins and that was it.

Alas, not nearly enough to set for a family baptismal celebration and Thanksgiving four days later. Off I went to shop.

Hobby Lobby, bless their hearts, had all sorts of stuff half-price. This was just great and I added metal pumpkins and candle holders and candles to my booty. I had pulled out my tablecloths and Target supplied another, as did Bed Bath and Beyond. Kirkland's was practically giving it away and I found some awesome wine glasses which we'll use on Thanksgiving Day when I'll have a better chance of controlling the toddler population and the glassware.

What bothers me is that I've done all this wonderful autumn shopping--and it's just October--not even Halloween--and it was all half price or less! And why might that be? Because the Christmas decorations are flooding the next aisles and demanding the space occupied by the fall goodies!

I'm not even thinking about Christmas beyond the gift list and I'm already a holiday behind. Sheesh!

Love's pure light

We sang Silent Night, Holy Night in church this morning, and I was once again reminded of a personal revelation from several years back.

For the majority of my life I'd merrily sang the first verse from memory. After Latin classes in high school, I'd long to sing it once again in Latin and occasionally, a more daring choir director would allow it. After college, there were the German words, the ones which happen to be printed in our Methodist hymnal, but in the 20 years I've been in choir I think we've gotten away with it only once.

So I heave a mental sigh in what I am sure is sympathy from the congregation who also want to sing it in another language, then I glance at the beginning of the second verse and sing on. (In looking through hymnals for this, I found that the Broadman Hymnal, standard of the Baptists for years, has an entirely different set of verses after the first.)

But it was in the third verse that revelation came. "Silent Night, Holy Night, Son of God, Love's pure light." In my mind's eye, it had always been "Son of God loves pure light." Well, of course He would, but it didn't necessarily make sense. Then, at some point, I actually read what I was singing. I noted the comma and the apostrophe. I had an entirely new interpretation, one that made sense!

I wish I knew it in German.

And to all a good Knight

Little did Edward Bulwer-Lytton know that his (in)famous opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night..." in the 1830 novel Paul Clifford, would inspire such nonsense as the contest run in his name and the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of many a semi-literary discussion. Romance authors themselves love the "He was a dark and stormy knight" aspect to it.

Which is just one reason why I so love English. It probably helps to be a native speaker and to be educated among people who loved a double entendre and puns. Myself, I love crossword puzzles and I know that those of the Wall Street Journal have polished my skills at looking at clues from more than one angle. English seems to be the most flexible of languages, adding and subtracting as its speakers want. That's an amateur wordsmith's opinion of course. The linguists might know another as versatile.

But for the moment, I want to combine the ending of Clement C. Moore's The Night Before Christmas with a romance twist. "And to all a good Knight." May you come across someone kind and honorable, valiant and trustworthy, male or female. May you be, to someone else, a good knight.

Merry Christmas. To all a good knight.