Random thought about Christmas Day store hours

[hunter]

11. When I was a kid Christmas was crazy time in my family.

None of the "responsible" adults could agree when, how, or if Christmas should be celebrated. And they fought.

I had only one grandmother who believed in the traditional U.S.A. Christmas with Santa Claus and a pagan Christmas tree, and even she was fairly certain Jesus wasn't born that day.

The Christmases of my childhood resembled the Troubles in Ireland. They were times of intense religious warfare.

I blame the Christians for that.

One of my siblings takes his family away every Christmas to tropical islands for the holiday, away from these Troubles, to lounge on the beach, a fancy iced drink in hand.

My dad just informed me that he and my mom will not be celebrating Christmas this year. Please don't surprise us. In previous years they'll find a piece of driftwood on the beach, stand it up in their living room, and hang what Christmas cards they receive on it to acknowledge and pay respect to any importance the holiday has to friends and family. I'm sure they'll do something similar this year too, but they are not accepting any extraordinary baggage of Christmas cheer.

My wife is a Christmas believer as my grandma was, as is her family, which causes some friction between us. But we've never had to argue about whose family we're celebrating Christmas with.

We've also found ourselves working on Christmas days. I don't know what God's problem is, but people still suffer medical emergencies on Christmas day and someone has to be around to deal with those.

If someone chooses to work on Christmas day, quite likely for extra pay, it's not any kind of tragedy.