BY JOE HUDSON
I was on the front porch when you drove by and I waved, thinking I love Christmas but the season is a trial for us Christians who must trudge down aisles of flashy gift items as “Here Comes Santa Claus” drizzles down upon us from ceiling speakers and we struggle to keep the nativity in our mind, a difficult thing, thanks to Charles Dickens. His story of cheerfulness and sharing brought needed income to theaters but hung commercial tinsel on a season that once spoke of God’s love come to earth to bring us salvation. Dickens’ story is one of neighborliness enhanced by an 1800’s food-service delivery of a turkey; the other is a story of love.
Therefore, this year Her Majesty and I have decided to flee the commercial madness and the online sales hysteria. We shall vamoose.
We are taking a vacation from the holiday of Christmas and plan to celebrate in Switzerland. More specifically, we’re headed to Little Switzerland, North Carolina, to a resort tucked away in the Blue Ridge mountains.
Our gift to us.
No tree with gifts piled under it. We’ve done that; it’s time to reboot.
I once roamed food-specialty shops buying French fluted tart pans or Polish porcelain truffle slicers. I would present them to folks who were not truffle-oriented people and whose annual truffle-tart production was practically zero so the gifts ended up in the back corner of a closet shelf, destined for a landfill.
One year I made a beef bourguignon using free-range Argentinian beef with a smoked paprika I ordered from Uruguay and made the broth by boiling elk carcasses with a cheesecloth containing farm-raised renewable bugs and grubs. I culled all the fat with a glass prism using organic sunlight then reduced everything in a Slovakian straining dish. It took five days to make, I barely slept, and when I set it down in front of my friends, they took a bite and said “Nice. Making travel plans for next year?” Okay, I may have gotten some ingredients mixed up, but you understand the gist of what happened. I don’t do flamboyant Christmases anymore.
Also, I am done with acquiring things. I have become a collector of experiences.
No gifts or holiday feasts for me, please. One small battery-operated candle, some canned meat and instant turkey gravy, potato chips, and a convenience store brownie. Done.
Christmas on a mountain with sunny skies and crisp air, perfect weather for clear thinking. Hopefully, there will be no blizzards that could force us to hunker down with barrels of hardtack and beef jerky and make coats out of bear hides. Either way, we’ll be safe from singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and can focus on our blessings.
I can think of one right now.
Christmas in 1992 when my wife was a few months from delivering a tiny infant boy and the two of us sat in our living room flush with anticipation for this marvelous gift. It was Christmas in its purest form, awaiting new life, and all future Christmases would be different. And what seemed a short time later, the miracle arrived.
The shepherds tending their flocks by night who were instructed by the angel to go to Bethlehem to behold a miracle did not find merry people gathered around a Christmas tree with nice gifts, a fine turkey dinner, and eggnog. They went to see a miracle that every person must decide to believe or to reject, that the Creator sent his only begotten Son to grow up Jewish and to be crucified for claiming to be our savior. It’s not about snowmen.
So, my Queen and I are going to the mountains to be grateful for each other and for all that a loving God has given us. May God bless you and your loved ones. Be kind. Do good. A child is born.
Readers can write to Joe at Joehudsn@gmail.com and Facebook (View from the Hudson). He is author of “Big Decisions are Best Made with Hot Dogs” and “A View from the Front Porch.”