You know when I was a kid, Christmas was always my favorite time of year.  I couldn’t wait to see what new toys Santa would bring.  For weeks before the big day I was on edge, always thinking I should have asked for this, or I shouldn’t have done that to my sister.  I never got a lump of coal or a bundle of switches for Christmas.  Which of course meant that Santa approved of how I treated my sister. 

 Anyway, the point I’m getting at here is this, when I was younger, the Christmas bug would bite me hard every year. 

The older I get the less that bug seems to effect me.  Not that I don’t love the spirit of this season and the joy of giving and receiving gifts, just that as I grow older I seem to over think things I guess.  Its all too commercial for me now.  I look forward to the time when family and friends are chilling in the den opening out gifts and smiling at each other.  Listening to happy music and drinking too much egg nog.  Eating sweets and the smell of our tree.  The laughter in the streets when the kids are all outside playing with their new toys and running around looking at what all their friends got too.  That feeling you have in your gut of satisfaction when your loved ones open that perfect gift you found for them and their eyes light up.  Or they just throw their arms around you and hug the life out of you.  That’s what this season is supposed to be about.  Open minded loved ones hanging out and celebrating.

In the spirit or being an open minded society, lets take a step out of the bustle for a second and look at something important that a lot of people right now are not thinking about, and may not even know.  Solstice, or the winter festival dates back before Christianity and several “gods” of that day had their birthdays celebrated on or around December 25th.  It is thought that Christians began Christmas celebrations on that date to both help Roman pagans to convert over to Christianity and to keep the tradition of the winter festival alive and strong.  Thus even folks claiming not to be Christians can celebrate in the comfort that the Solstice Winter festival and not the true birth of Christ is the foundation of our current holiday. 

The bible doesn’t list the birth date of Jesus, and some papal scholars believe he may have been born on March 25th.  (facts based on information found here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas )

I don’t bring these facts up to dilute the christian belief’s.  I speak of these other rituals and celebrations to share with everyone the true meaning of these holidays, the spirit of giving.  The spirit of thinking about others and enjoying the company of friends, family and neighbors.   The idea that the stranger sitting beside you on the bus, or standing next to you in the elevator is connected to you if only for a short while.  Our common bond this time of year is that of caring for one another.  Smile and tell your stranger to have a happy holidays. 

“God bless us everyone.” doesn’t mean only the Christians.  Open your heart, your eyes and your mind to the fact that we are all of us on this world together.  Lets try to get along with each other and at least for this season, be nice to each other.

A guy just died and is standing at the pearly gates, waiting to be admitted, while St. Peter is leafing through a big book to see if the guy is worthy. St. Peter goes through the book several times and furrows his brow.
“You know, I can’t see that you ever did anything really bad in your life, but you never did anything really good either. If you can point to even one really good deed, you’re in.” 

The guy thinks for a moment. “Yeah, there was this one time when I was driving down the highway and saw a giant group of biker gang members vandalizing a schoolyard. I slowed down my car to see what was going on and sure enough, there they were, about 50 of ‘em smashing in windows, tearing off doors and setting fires. Infuriated, I got out of my car, grabbed a tire iron out of my trunk, walked up to the leader of the gang — a huge guy with a studded leather jacket and a chain running from his nose to his ear. As I walked up to the leader, the biker gang members formed a circle around me. So, I ripped the leader’s chain off his face and smashed him over the head with the tire iron. Laid him out. Then I turned and yelled at the rest of them, ‘Leave this poor building alone! You’re all a bunch of sick, deranged animals! Go home before I teach you all a lesson in pain!’”

St. Peter, impressed starts looking through his book again and says, “Really? When did this happen?”

“Oh, about two minutes ago.”

An old biker decked out in his leather chaps, jacket and boots with faded jeans and a Harley T-shirt went to a bar and ordered a drink.

As he sat there sipping his whiskey, a young lady sat down next to him. After she ordered her drink she turned to the biker and asked him, “Are you a real biker?”

He replied, “Well, I have spent my whole life on two wheels, riding Harley’s, fixin’ bikes, and trying to find the perfect curve in the road, I guess I am.” After a short while he asked her what she was.

She replied, “I’ve never been on a Harley so I’m not a biker, but I am a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning I think of women, when I eat, work, watch TV, everything seems to make me think of women.”

A short while later she left and the biker ordered another drink.

A couple sat down next to him and asked, “Are you a real biker?”

He replied, “I always thought I was, but I just found out that I’m probably a lesbian.”

Its the silly season again.  Folks out shopping for family and friends, buying gifts and creating havoc with the traffic.  Those of us on bikes hate traffic this time of year even more than most.  Peoples minds are never on the road when they are out running their Christmas errands.   Do an old biker a favor and give us a break will yah?  I’m not asking for you to stay home and shop online (although that’s what I did this year), just that you keep you mind on the road and your eye on your surroundings.  The best Christmas gift you can give yourself and the folks like me on bikes this year is not to hurt or kill someone while out there.

Well the next thing I will write about here is a recent trip to a friends house for a Christmas party.  Boy did I learn some things!  First impressions are great, and talking with a guy for years can tell you a lot, but you never really get to know a guy until you see his house. 

This guys home was like a little piece out of the mind of Jimmy Buffet.  His back yard alone was by far the coolest I have ever seen.  It was a little island get away built into a suburban neighborhood.  When I knocked and rang the bell no one answered, I knew we were doing grilled steaks so I wandered around to the back of the house.  There looking through the garage I could see my fellow employees chillin’ around a garden table and drinking while the grill heated up.  

The relaxing tunes of the beach and classic rock played through speakers all around the yard.  There was not just a patio and a gazebo, there was three separate little deck areas.  The patio had the grill and ice chests, the corner gazebo (really more of a grass hut or cabana) had speakers of its own and lighting plus signage that really expressed a lot about our host.  Then just behind that there was a smoker hidden away.  Between that hut and the patio is what I can only describe as “the deck”.  Two lounging lawn chairs sit beside a couple of small tables, each chair giving you a great view of the pool and at least this night a soft warm breeze crossed the deck. 

We sat fat and happy after some of the best home cooked steaks I have ever devoured courtesy of my boss, and listened to the guys tell their tails and chat casually about work and life and really nothing at all.  It was the kind of place you go to disappear from all the turmoils of life, a place where nothing from work or home or family ever touched that short little fuse in your anger, or your last nerve.  Nobody was worried about anything, we just were. 

Some would say Christmas was meant to be cold winter in front of a warm fireplace.  Others would say they love their white Christmas.  Me? I’m a good ol southern boy.  I don’t live in Texas cause I like cold.  No, I think the Santa I saw in my friends bathroom summed it all up for me.

A man owns a parrot that swears like a sailor. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself.
Trouble is, the guy who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and the bird’s foul mouth is driving him crazy.
One day, it gets out of control. The guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him hard and yells, “Quit it!”
But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets mad and says,
“Now you’re going to pay.” He locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet.
This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts
loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran sailor blush. At this point, the guy is so mad that he
throws the bird into the freezer.
For the first few seconds, there is a terrible ruckus. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes.
Then it suddenly gets very, very quiet. At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt.
After a couple of minutes of silence, he’s worried enough to open the freezer door.
The bird calmly climbs onto the man’s outstretched arm and says, “Awfully sorry about the trouble I caused you.
I’ll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on.” The man is astounded. He can’t understand the transformation
that has come over the parrot. Then the parrot asks, “By the way, what did the chicken do?”

Well guys I escaped another close call today.  I don’t really know why I write this here other than to just get it off my chest.  I got a call at home yesterday from the receptionist at work who told me that our HRM (Human Resources Manager) needed to see me in her office.  I explained I was off on Tuesdays but would check in with her first thing this morning.

All night I worried about what she was going to tell me.  I logged onto City of Heroes (an MMORPG I like) but my head wasn’t in it and I died several times.  I tried to sleep and spent the whole night in an uneasy rest.  I arrived at work today and began my day as normal, checked my online finance applications (there was none as usual) went about helping them push the used bikes out onto the lot and thought about all the bikes we had recently gotten out of service that I still do not have pictures of for our website.  By the time I decided to just go up and get it over with I was sure today was my last day at this company.

When I walked into the office there were two large boxes on the floor.  I immediately jumped to the conclusion they were to help me clean out my desk.  HRM asked me to come in for a sec while she finished a quick phone call.  By now I was close to breakdown with panic.  Only 20 days till Christmas and me without a job…

HRM told me to get into the boxes and get out my new uniform shirts, I was to sign for three short and three long sleeve shirts.

Whew… I left the office much relieved.  When I got downstairs I stopped to speak with Johnny one of our other salesmen to relay the experience to him.  He smiled and relayed a similar experience of his own just yesterday when he was called to the office.  He had actually started cleaning out his desk before he went up.  We both stopped for a moment of retrospective thought and I concluded that my time here really is short.  I don’t want to work anywhere that I feel as if any second the axe could drop.  Maybe I’m asking too much, but I would like to feel that when I get to work my job is not being held over my head.  That so long as I am working at getting the task’s they place before me done to best of my ability, my job is secure.

I guess in today’s workplace that’s asking too much though.  Oh well breathe in breathe out, repeat as needed… life goes on.