I am feeling better. Between the vitamin D (thanks Bobber) and actually getting sleep, life is good.

I’ve had no real time to write, lately. I have the usual times throughout the week, but I haven’t had the Saturday 3-hour block in three weeks now. It wears on me a bit as ideas ‘back up’ in the ol’ noggin’ and give me a headache. Fortunately, most of the ideas are on scraps of text documents on a few different computers.

One of the characters in Winesburg, Ohio wrote his ideas on scraps of paper that became hard balls in his coat pocket. He would throw these hardened ideas at his only friend and laugh saying “That is to confound you, you blathering old sentimentalist”. I believe that I have a few of these ‘paper pills’ of my own. However, I am not Doctor Reefy. It seems that I am the blathering old sentimentalist, instead.

It’s the time of year for being sentimental, so what can I say? I think it’s the Christmas lights on the old houses I pass on the way home. One of them, my wife’s favorite, has nothing but the old style blue lights weaved into the bushes and tiny front porch at the front of the house. At night, these lights shine out like tiny pieces of the brightest summer sky poking out from a black cloth. There is not a good word for the sense of sophistication shown by these simple decorations. It’s the kind of sophistication that was once considered quite smart, but is now seen as quaint. It’s as if stringing up hundreds of feet of these bulky lights is not as grueling as setting up some modern showcase of inflatable snow globes.

The friendly lines and smiling windows of old houses make me fond of them. Older houses say that a family moved here to stay and grow old with the house together as if the house itself is a member of the family. Newer homes usually sigh that they are a step for someone to rest awhile before moving to a bigger, better, newer place – they are not allowed to age gracefully and strive for a sense of eternal youth.

But I digress. Family is the thought for this time of year. I have managed to visit with mine this year and it makes me happy that we have yet one more year to celebrate Christmas together. Some things have changed, I married into a family that observes Passover and occasionally Chanukah. There are dreidels on our holiday cards and we think about the miracle of light. Yet, the important things have not changed. We are a family and we stay together. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Next year’s holiday card will have four smiling faces instead of three. By then, I’m sure that I’ll have a menorah to teach our oldest about a part of his heritage. (I should also have about ten feet of gill net strung up for similar reasons, but that’s not a holiday thing. Then again, maybe I should hang a gill net behind us for the card next year. Hmmm.) By the time next Christmas rolls around, I’ll once again be ready for the respite that comes for a brief time at the end of the calendar year. It reminds me of home and family, respites from the world and it’s ceaseless striving.

I’ll be sentimental for as long as I can.