The Holidays Are Almost Here: Gold or Coal in Our Stockings?

Holidays and other "important" occasions have always had a way of "getting away from me." It's not that I am not paying attention, it's more a case of feeling like I have never had the time to just take time away from everything else to focus purely on holiday stuff.

Of course, that's not entirely true; there was plenty of time for "Holiday Stuff" when I was a kid — baking cookies, planning amazing meals, writing Christmas cards, shopping for — and wrapping — presents, making decorations and ornaments, decorating our surroundings. Whereas I won't claim to have had much Norman Rockwell-esque holiday imagery dancing around in my head, we certainly did make something of the holidays.

That more or less ended when I was in college and settled into a reality of neither having the time nor the funds to do anything much about the holidays. Somehow my parents did, but that reality never became mine, as I was always working two jobs (sometimes three) to merely keep afloat, or I was in business for myself, typically working in fields that centered on serving others disproportionately during the holidays.

My holiday memories from having an art gallery and gift store (1985-1999) was showing up at 9:00am the Friday after Thanksgiving, dealing with a crowded store till the last people were herded out around 9:15pm, and staggering home around 9:30, too exhausted to think about anything other than mindlessly staring at the wall... and then doing pretty much the same thing for the next 30 days straight.

That is simply "the life" when you're involved in something where 40-50% of your annual income is created during the 30-day period before Christmas.

The funny and ironic thing is that I have always chosen self-employment as the potential path to freedom and not being beholden to employers and The System that I really don't believe in and yet, my experience in the pursuit of that that freedom is a deeper understanding of why people do sell their souls to that system: It's just much EASIER.

Or, at least, that's my perception, from my vantage point of never quite knowing where my next income is going to come from.

The struggle is also a poignant and constant reminder that what I value is — most of the time — radically different from what the mainstream values. When I am presented with what is allegedly "popular and important" to people I mostly don't get it, and when I present them with what matters to ME I typically get eyerolls and statements like "Why would anybody care about THAT?"

So now we find ourselves just a few weeks from Christmas 2023, and time has once again gotten away from me, because I have been entrenched primarily in the business of simply keeping the electricity turned on and such basics of life.

Somehow, 2023 feels different though... as a lot more people are sitting with similar struggles as I, and I find myself wondering just how many of us are going to be getting the proverbial "coal in our stockings" this year, thanks to this pervasively stagnant economy.

Sure, the government says that the economy is "doing great," but the metric they use to arrive at that statement has more to do with corporate profits and less to do with ordinary people getting sticker shock when they buy a carton of eggs.

Maybe the best gift we're all actually getting for the Holidays this year is that "2023 continued the Great Reset." People talk about that, and I'm sure it means different things to different folks.

I look at it mostly from the perspective of "Meta Cycles" in greater philosophical leanings and thoughts... the ones that tend to occur in 40-50 year cycles. It seems the cycle that started with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 is drawing to a close... a cycle that replaced a different era that began in the 1930's when FDR was president of the US, as the nation clawed its way back to prosperity. Another 40-50 years back, and you end at the US "Gilded Age" from the 1880's, through the "Roaring 20's" until the 1929 Stock Market crash and the Great Depression.

And now? We are perhaps in the "bridge years." Regardless of whether you prefer Donald Trump or Joe Biden both of them are close to ancient, and surely they must be the last of the "Old Gray Hawks" of an old era, opening the door for some younger blood to shape the USA as a nation in decades ahead.

I know that some will likely opine that they would rather be led by experience than the impulsiveness of youth, but the issue with relying excessively on "super seniors" in government is the simple fact that as we age we tend to increasingly fear and resist change, often to our detriment. Looking at the leadership of most industrialized nations around the world, this "changing of the guard" is already happening elsewhere, and I expect the US will have to follow, albeit reluctantly.

We can but hope. At least, I have hopes... And now, I really must start thinking about the holidays!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Sunday!

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Created at 2023-11-19 00:44 PDT
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