A Holiday Reflection: Culminating Years Into An Abyss Of Darkness

I didn't have much plan for this New Years Eve night after hosting the family Christmas party then swinging into a two night three day post Christmas kids party to bake cookies, cupcakes and do the Christmas crafts I had planned to do before Christmas with them until a bout of nasty colds came along.

I got all those dishes you buy that you pull out once a year finally tucked back into place but left up the folding tables so they could sling blankets over them and built their little hideouts. They kept busy in between playing make believe, baking and crafts by extending a race track system I bought them for Christmas further downstairs into the dining by placing a curve extension once it hit the bottom of the stairs. One of the things they love to do was take tracks and run them down the steps to see who's car would get to the bottom first so when I seen this race track that attaches to a wall where you place a car, hit a lever to make it race up the wall, around a curve, back down again into a loop system....well, you know, yes they are spoiled...I could envision them extending it down the steps into the ultimate challenge so it was every bit worth it to adopt this fine specimen of unusual "art" to attach to the wall at the top of my stair landing. There's another section of it that lets them run it into another direction, across the hall and into the kids room, while they are here you have to step over the tracks to go into the bathroom but I can detach the tracks and place them in the kids room when they are not here. It would have been worth every bit of the fifty nine bucks it cost if I had actually paid that price. I had thirty three dollars in rewards from the store I bought it from, I clipped that digital reward before leaving but for some reason it didn't register when I went to cash out. I took it up to the customer service counter where it just happened an old family friend was working and she got me an additional fifteen dollar reduction with a Santa buck coupon she had behind the counter so it came out an exceptional buy for eleven bucks for the amount of entertainment they've gotten out of it. So far no one's gotten it to take the curve at the bottom of the steps and swing on into the dining room but I figure that's just a matter of time until they figure out the proper amount of blocks to put under it to leverage it to make that incredible feat. I will admire that first achiever as the amount of envy will almost seem insurmountable.

I was just laying back watching a movie waiting for my son to call me to come next door for pizza when it was time. I fell to sleep waiting for him to call only to be awaken by fireworks going off. I changed the television station to watch the ball drop only to see the confetti falling from the sky. Laying there watching the festivities in New York I realized that outside of Ryan Sescrest I've never seen or heard of anyone there before. I decided to go get the phone and call my son to see what was up with the pizza and found that he too had fallen asleep having gotten up at five in the morning to go to work. While waiting for them to warm up some pizza my other son called to say happy new year then I called my mom to do the same.

I sat for a few minutes gazing out of my office window over into the park watching fireworks drop into the background of freshly fallen snow. I could still hear the voices on the television of people I didn't know unlike years in the past. As I watched the fireworks fall upon the background of darkness I realized just how much of what I had always known was dwindling down into the unknown. The passing of people and the families that have moved on replaced by those who don't have the time to care or others who can't, won't or don't. No one left of any significance to leave behind a legacy of hope, or beacon of light for holiday cheer. We are being driven into the darkness by those who claim to be woke without much care from a whole lot of folks.