All of a sudden it was Christmas again

Dear Bloggers,

For most of us, the holiday of Christmas is often filled with food, presents, family, friends, church family maybe, and many other festive things. It's a time when we get together to remember times long past and to discuss things that are going on today, whether it's funny stories and just getting a few great laughs, or getting together most importantly to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, or to discuss world events and such. Some people don't celebrate at all, and that's OK too. Everybody has their own thing. Christmas can be a very fun holiday and a time to connect with others and to be giving generously. But for some, Christmas can be a very painful reminder of something else. That is, the loss of a loved one. . . . . . . 

Just when the holiday season had started, a family I know lost her man and father who was a very important and much loved family member in their lives to a sudden death of at present unknown causes. They were like everybody else, getting ready for the holidays and looking forward to friends and family getting together. Then the rug was pulled out from under them. Instead of joy, they are feeling intense grief at this sudden loss. Now all of a sudden their plans for Christmas will have an absent family member; husband, father, mentor and friend to so many. Almost all the 1,000 people of our little village went to the funeral to pay their respects. It goes to show what he was in life by the amount of friends he had and the respect they had for him. He earned every bit of it, and I hope he is now with the Lord. I grieve along with the family and friends, for the loss is a very big and devastating one to those of us who knew him.

Many other people have lost loved ones to horrible circumstances during the holidays. Car accidents or other kinds of accidents, suicide, homicide, a sudden or perhaps a lingering illness, and other terrible situations. During the holidays the loss can be devastating and overshadow the holiday and for some very good reasons. It's difficult to enjoy the holiday when you have suffered the loss of someone you loved more than anything during that time period, and their absence creates a void that will never again be completely filled. Christmas is now not only a holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ, but it's now a reminder of the death of a loved one. In time it may heal, but the scar will forever remain, lingering in the back of their minds. That's the very sad part of it, and I would never wish it upon anyone. 

But there is one thing I have always found in all my 44 years. Having lost loved ones myself and thinking of them during Christmas, one thing was very clear even if everything else wasn't at the time. Even though I am not much of a believer, I still think that God doesn't always cause death, but at times he may take someone for reasons known only to him at the time. Sometimes it's a blessing depending on the circumstances, especially if someone is suffering horribly. But often death happens for reasons that God has nothing to do with. 

We all make choices at times, and sometimes choices may take us into a dangerous path which can either take our lives or the lives of others. It's not done on purpose of course, and it's never foreseen, it's just sometimes a result of a person's judgment that isn't always up to par, and unfortunately there are sometimes consequences. Just one mistake can change the course of a person's life forever. Many grieve along with us when we lose somebody because of those circumstances. When it comes to appealing to human nature, he can't change his natural laws for just one person.

Once he created those laws, it had to be universal for everyone, even if it meant pain and heartache at times. The collapse of the Twin Towers is a perfect example of how he could not just re-raise the structure and reverse what happened. Or more recent the shooting on a elementary school in Newton were more than twenty lives were lost, it feels that God has abandoned them. He would have had to do that with everything else as well. 

I give all of you a huge hug and encouragement. Don't ever give up. Our loved ones want us to keep going and keep their memory alive. If we do that, we will always be honoring not only their memory, but honoring them as people who were always will be important to us. As they thought us many important things in live. 

I hope your Christmas and New Year will be very prosperous and happy. Merry Christmas to all of you.

The Old Sailor,

Christmas is over

Dear Bloggers,


One of the best moments of Christmas comes when it is over. I say that not as a party-pooper - I love it when it is happening - but because we now can get on with real life, which is not that bad for most of us.

Much as we love visitors, and especially small ones, the silence is heavenly when they have gone to bed. We need no longer spend hours on frenzied High Street hunts for presents.
There is an end to all the business excuses which start in November about 'getting back to you after Christmas'.

This is a terrific time for doing household jobs pending since Easter, making up to the cats for being neglected since advent, steering children back to planet earth after weeks in orbit, and imposing censorship on all further moaning about the weather.

I am not a fan of the Christmas frenzy

I enjoyed the snow, but we have been there and done that. The stuff is sensational when new, clean and present in sufficient quantities for toboggans. But once it starts fading to slush, the picture-postcard thrill is gone. Eventhough it is hell to drive on these kind of days.

I once tried going abroad for Christmas, sitting in the sun while my friend described with sardonic glee exactly what cosmetic work each of the women around the pool had done. He is a great bastard if it comes to women.

However, the palm trees felt hopelessly wrong for the season, and we agreed never to repeat the experiment. This is the time for mulled wine, not bikinis. Almost everyone who loves their own home wants to be in it. I am bemused by those who brave the horrors of December airports, even when not snowbound.

My clever wife always makes a very small christmas effort on dining and I will do the rest of it as we do not see the point of the extreme luxury of eating turkey. By Boxing Day it resembles Sonja Bakker on a diet - almost invisible from a side view. Today it is already homemade tomatosoup. And now we have to go for another week and we will start a New Year without any future plans.

We go back to normal rations as soon as the remains of the exclusive diner have been cleared up, and are jolly grateful, too. I feel bad for the ones that were born in the month of December as their birthday is normally snowed under by the festivities in this month.

If you want children who will love you, prospective parents should be careful about what they do together around mid-March. Few babies born in December are grateful. They resent seeing Mummy sticking candles into a half-eaten Christmas cake on the grounds that there is no consumer demand for a special birthday one.

In our family we are great believers in getting on with it, whatever 'it' may be. This is a perfect season for looking ahead rather than backwards, and making things happen.

At this time of year, I am also spared from sceptical spectators. When other people are around, I realise that some do not regard what I do for a living. Some of them think that I am still working on a ship. That is how interrested people are nowadays.

No one under 40 seems to do it yourself any more, but this is a great week for those of us who love our Black & Deckers to build new shelves, mend the fence and sort out the garage.

I can never understand why home carpentry and decorating have gone out of fashion. However many Poles are clamouring for custom, it is fun as well as cash-saving to do some of the business in-house.

We oldies have the supreme satisfaction that we need not start getting glum about the prospect of going back to school. January is a much brighter month than December, with snowdrops and lengthening days.

Our ancestors had cause to get depressed at New Year about the prospect of seeing little fresh food before spring, facing months of salted meat and half-frosted potatoes. We are subject to no such privations, unless something goes horribly wrong at Albert Heijn.

We can walk country lanes with the assurance of returning to warm homes, and wave away the last days of 2010 without a tremor of nostalgia.

This is a time for looking ahead, sighing with relief that a pretty dismal year for most of us is drawing to an end.

If children believe in Santa Claus or in my country Sinterklaas, it is the privilege - indeed the duty - of their parents to cherish a conviction that the times to come will be better than the times past. Here's hoping that it will be so for you.

The Old Sailor,