1. For a little while just after sunset, the sky is the most gorgeous and vivid shade of blue, providing a beautiful backdrop for the bare tree branches silhouetted against it. For a couple of minutes, admiring this image can at least take your mind off of how miserably cold it is.
2. What ever happened to tinsel? Did an entire manufacturing niche just disappear somewhere around 1980?
3. Has anyone else noticed the marshmallow peeps disguised as Christmas candy? Isn't this just wrong?
4. If I don't celebrate Christmas but someone wishes me a Merry Christmas because they aren't aware that I don't celebrate Christmas, this is an honest mistake and nothing for me to get upset about.
5. Relying on someone's facial features or surname is less reliable than ever as a means of determining what holidays a person does or does not celebrate at this time of year. If I know what holiday you celebrate, I will specify that holiday when offering you greetings of the season. If I decide to wish you "Happy Holidays" rather than guess incorrectly, no disrespect to you is intended; if you feel otherwise, you need to lighten up. Likewise, if you are part of a group of people who celebrate a variety of different holidays and I extend generic wishes for a happy holiday to the entire group so that everyone is included, I mean you no disrespect. If you really have trouble with this concept, I probably shouldn't even be hanging around with you.
6. In the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," would it really have been all that terrible for the Donna Reed character if her life had turned out differently and she'd had to work at the library?
7. Back in the day, did the hours long WPIX (Channel 11) Christmas Eve broadcast of the Yule log really make anyone feel better about not having a fireplace?
8. Although I've been out of the loop for some time now regarding holiday movies for preschoolers, is "Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas" still a contender for all time best in this category?
9. Song or no song, everyone needs to experience chestnuts roasting on an open fire at least once.
10. Has anyone ever actually seen a dreidel made out of clay? Aren't they almost always made out of plastic or wood?
11. During my childhood, outdoor Christmas lights were large and multicolored. By the 1980s, small white lights became the norm. Most recently, single color stands of intense shades are appearing on more and more houses. Whose job is it to write this memo? (I wrote this on Dec. 22, only to find a front page article - above the fold, no less - about this very same topic in the NY Times on Dec. 24. My first thought was that it must have been a very slow news day. My second thought was incredulity that someone actually got paid to write that article.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/nyregion/24lights.html?src=me
12. Are presents as much fun to receive if they're given to you in gift bags and there's no unwrapping to do?
13. Everyone in line for the movies on Christmas afternoon cannot possibly be Jewish.
14. One of the best pieces of Christmas writing of all time is Truman Capote's "A Christmas Story." If you have not yet had the pleasure of reading this, you need to do so. If you go to your library to look for it, you will probably find it in the collection Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Short Stories. You will not be sorry you took me up on this advice.
15. Looking forward to 2011 - it's gotta be better than the clunker we've just had.
