Christmas Traditions @Solsticepublish, @Solsticeshadows

For those of you who don’t follow this blog on a regular basis, my computer blew up about 6 months ago and I had to buy a Windows 8.1 machine.  Not all my files or knowledge for that matter were compatible.  So every little while I go to find something and discover to my surprise it is not on my new computer.  This time the missing item was a hefty portion of songs I had acquired over the years.  Many of the missing songs happened to be Christmas songs I like to hear this time of year.  They aren’t just your old department store songs.  These are ones like Bruce Springsteen singing “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” and “Merry Christmas Baby”, Bryan Adams singing “Run, Run Rudolph”, the Beach Boys singing “The Little Saint Nick” and U2 singing “Please Come Home.”  I never hear these versions on the radio or in stores.  For some reason though, I have to hear them for it to seem like Christmas.  If they are truly gone I will be most disappointed.  I like to think most families have traditions.  We like to get the big 14 once Toblerone bars (this year I could only find the 7 once ones) and we each get a caramel and chocolate dipped apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory rolled in different toppings.  I happen to like the crushed Snickers Bar topping.  It is my belief that wrapping paper is radioactive as we all hold off wrapping our gifts until Christmas Eve.  It’s like we’re afraid to touch the paper or something.  On that day I get off work and wrap, pick up the apples, and then we all go see a movie.  (Like the last 2 years, this year we’re going to the Hobbit.  I am an Epic Fantasy writer after all).  After that we go to church.  We leave out milk and cookies for Santa.  As a child we always left out Diet Pepsi and cookies.  My father gave up drinking when I could barely walk but is addicted to Diet Pepsi.  When I would ask mother why the other children left out milk and we left out pop she told me milk might spoil by the time Santa reached our house and he could stand to lose a few pounds anyway.  All those years I never put it together.  Crazy.  It has taken me years but I finally see why my parents were so reluctant to get up on Christmas morning.  Aside from the fact that they always wrapped after we were asleep, they knew what most of the presents were.  It’s kind of like your children want you to get up to watch a movie you have seen and they haven’t.  You would just rather sleep but their constant pestering reminds you that this is not about you.  It is about them and that the day is coming when there will be no one to wake you on Christmas morning.  Maybe the pestering isn’t so bad after all?  I used to play my Christmas music from the computer but since that no longer appears plausible, I will likely turn the cable to the Christmas Music Station.  By the way…I hate windows 8.1!  Okay.  Now I feel better.  I have my big gift for my wife which I have planned for months and always end up as an epic failure.  That’s a blog in and of itself.  As I always say, though, “I fail miserably with the best of intentions.”  In the near future I will have the sounds of just my wife and me and these days will be memories and traditions I can only hope transfer to my children.  Let’s hope I at least have my music back by then.