Merry Christmas

You could hear the gentle rustle as the sleet hit the dead leaves. The shadow from the street lights giving everything a back drop of night, all the rest washed of color by the uniformity of the light.

I stood a prisoner to the cold and yet was transfixed for a long moment by the simple dark beauty of it. My mind instantly began to wander from topics as distant as vampires, zombies, and apocalypse, to carols and the shaded twinkle of Christmas trees.

I imagine night spent sitting up staring into the innards of some poor dieing pine festooned with tinsel and bauble laced through with electricity and glass.

I remember the supernatural hopes that I imagine some now feed on as delivered by their gods and ritual. The hope that something beyond the pale of what we mere mortals call power will come to our aid, no matter how selfish, because in our heart of hearts we all feel deserving, regardless of where our knowledge says we aren't.

And now even as I write this the delicious sadness is upon me. Sadness for what I can't quite place, but I know its subject is wrapped up in that hope which only comes on rainy nights in fall, and lone vigils by the tree thinking of Santa and karma, swimming in holy greed, buoyed on the oft misplaced compassion of others. The flavor of it smacks of self pity but it is not so base nor easily understood.

Perhaps the sweet hurt is about the attack on hope itself, that each passing moment presents as we move further and further from our mystery infused childhood thinking, and closer and closer to something equally wonderful and yet wholly different.

A thinking that some have persisted in grappling to the point of total perversion of the spirit of such thoughts. Clinging with desperation to a childhood blanket of security with such vehemence that when reality inexorably pulls it from our grasp, as it does, the thing be torn to shreds and stretched out of all recognition in relation to its former virtuous glory.

The night loves us all, until it hates us, and for my part I love the night for all its hope and benevolence, because as countless know, whether the night loves you or hates you, it will make clear, with no hesitation. Even in its apathy the night speaks volumes.

And so as the winter festivals approach, and in particular the one of note from my youth, I find it time to announce that ever so ubiquitous phrase made famous by our culture of one way communicative arts...

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.