8 Days Before Christmas

Will you tell me why people are such all-fired rude snots when they are out Christmas shopping? I intended just to take a usual trip up to Town Center to check if the Barnes & Noble had that Christmas "BBC History Magazine" (not only didn't they have it, but they still had the November issue—phooey).

I actually went to JoAnn first, since I was also looking for the new issue of Mary Hickmott's "New Stitches," which was easy, but after that I got embroiled in holiday shopping traffic. I didn't mind the slowness as much as people just driving without any regard for anyone else. At Barnes & Noble, a woman in an SUV trying to get around an SUV was blabbing on her cell phone and steering with one hand in the narrow lane between cars. I was heading out of JoAnn and decided I did not want to make the left turn as the traffic going toward the mall was so bad, so I was trying to change lanes. I had my blinker on and a dozen cars just zipped past me without giving me any consideration. Had the light been green, I might have understood, but they were passing me without letting me in, just to stop at the light a few yards ahead. After I left Borders, I went out the back to avoid Barrett Parkway. I was going straight past the LifeWay store. To my right, three cars were lined up waiting for parking places. Instead of letting me and the person behind me go through until the three cars moved on, a person coming in the opposite direction turned left to queue behind the three cars, completely blocking the road.

Oh, and when I was coming out of Barnes & Noble, I did so via Bells Ferry Road. There are two lanes at that point, one a dedicated left turn, the other a combined straight/right turn. I was going straight, so I did not have my turn signal on, but this didn't keep the woman behind him from beeping her horn at me several times, motioning me to turn right!

It absolutely flabbergasts me the shopping frenzy people get into before Christmas. Hello! Christmas IS NOT ABOUT GIFTS!!! Gifts are nice. It is wonderful to know someone cares about you enough to buy a gift. I like buying gifts for my friends and family; it makes me feel good. But the frenzy drives me nuts. Christmas is about fun, fellowship, friends, family...gifts are not the main objective! Give it a rest, folks!


Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, Frances Frost
I first read this book back in Stadium School in the early 1960s, and it never fails to please—in fact it makes you want to chuck it all for an old-fashioned dairy farm in Vermont in the late 1940s. Kids today would probably gape at how self-sufficient kids back then were allowed to be: 12-year-olds out skiing alone or taking their 9-year-old sisters on snowshoes out in the woods with no sign of GPS or cell phones for parents to keep track of them; instead of texting or playing video games, the kids actually interact with their parents and don't act like they're embarrassed by them, popping corn in front of the fire, going carol singing and Christmas shopping. Little girls still enjoy their childhood: play with dolls and enjoy a good book for Christmas and tramp out into the woods to gather evergreens rather than swoon over pubescent boy singers and try on makeup.

This book will make you feel warm and happy. Okay, the little brother who makes up rhymes does get a bit much occasionally. But then younger siblings do!