Memories that won’t scare the Dickens out of you
It’s Christmas Eve. The kids and Kat are all in bed. Even the dogs have snuggled down for the night. Only one kitten, the calico, still roams around, chasing some piece of fluff that is invisible to the human eye.  We’ve managed to play it as low-key as possible tonight. Grandpa Bob stopped by for a dinner of ham and dressing, gave the little ones their presents, and watched The Polar Express with them before leaving.
A glass of scotch and a fresh cigar await me. No milk and cookies, thank you. I fear the bump in blood pressure from the cookies more than I do getting cancer from the cigar. The holidays are exhausting and I’m not the one who has to make 28 stops-per-second in order to deliver toys to every child on the planet. The way I figure it, Santa is that alcoholic CEO who barks orders all year and then sobers up just in time to make an impressive showing at the annual stockholders meeting. The elves secretly hate him but he has a face that’s good for business.
Digging back through the archives, again, I came across a couple of photos I didn’t know I still had. They’ve not been seen in almost ten years. I found some others I’d intentionally been ignoring. Between batches of cookies and an absolutely dreadful last-minute dash to the grocery store, a trip that might have cost me my life were Kat not so incredibly calm in a crowd, I managed to edit the set, or re-edit in some cases. They’re not new photos by any means. They’re ghosts of photos past, reminding us of people who were once in our lives with great frequency. As Scrooge missed the merriment of his youth, so we miss the friendships represented in these photos.
Damn it, the little dog just barked at that fat Kringle fellow. I had to ask him (Kringle) to make another loop around the state while I put the fuzzy little beast back in bed. I hope the kids don’t stir. I don’t have the energy to hide the presents. One has to be careful about where they store coal.
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