I saw a story...

...about a man who has a gift that his mother gave him for Christmas twenty six years ago. In itself, that's not very odd...lots of us have gifts from years ago. What made this gift special is the fact that it was unopened. That gift, still in it's original wrapping, has come to mean a lot to it's owner and to the school children to whom he shows the mystery gift every year.

The guy saved the gift, unopened, as a result of a comment made by a family member. Twenty six years ago, someone casually remarked that their Christmas had been a great one, but by the next day it would all be over. Agreeing with that sentiment, the guy held back one gift when he opened the others that year. He planned to open it the next day to make Christmas last a bit longer. One thing led to another and now the feeling of that one Christmas long ago is still alive even though the person who gave him the gift, his mother, has long since passed.

Pretty neat, huh? I can't handle not knowing what is in a gift wrapped box with my name on it. I MUST peek. I admit it and I'm sorry. I'm hideous. But this old guy and his unopened box has shown me the light. I promise to try to do better before I die...OK?

And then, someone left this idea in a comment:

"...You could make it a whopping month long event and celebrate all the holidays until the end of January ending with the Chinese New Year!..."

I didn't have to think about that one for any length of time at all...I liked the idea immediately. So, barring any unforeseen difficulties, I'm going to try to make the holidays last a bit longer if I can.

If you like the idea too, you have to do something right away. Before your memories begin to fade, you need to think really hard and come up with the best feeling that you had yesterday. Close your eyes for just a moment and picture the scene around you when you felt that feeling. Take one of those mental snapshots...or heck, take a mental video...of everyone who was there at the time. As you start to go back to today's mental business, look back at that scene a few more times to sort of hammer the view into your psyche.

I have no idea how I'm going to go about this yet and any ideas would be welcomed. Certainly let me know if you're aware of holidays in January that don't fall on the first or fifteenth.

Now, how many of you know what Boxing Day is? It's today, by the way. For some reason that I'm unaware of, Boxing Day never caught on in America. Traditionally a day when the have's give gifts to the have-not's, many of us left this particular holiday back in the mother country. I have a theory as to why that happened.

The hero of this holiday was martyred too...only he was stoned to death. Apparently, much has been made of the fact that stones do not make very nice necklace charms. As a result, Christmas won out over Boxing Day. So, gentle readers, I hope you learned something new...I surely did.

You know, "gentle readers" does SOUND sweet, doesn't it? Well, I like to think that the people who read this stuff aren't really the sappiest folks around. Sure, you might enjoy extending the holiday feelings...it's a nice feeling. Who wouldn't want to extend a nice feeling feeling? Actually, that fits right in to my anti gentle readers philosophy because it makes us all rather selfish, doesn't it? After all, if we weren't selfish, we wouldn't try so hard to get that good feeling that comes from giving of ourselves...right?

If I like feeling good about myself, does that make me selfish? Maybe it does. Damn, Rick was right...he's not the selfish one...he had to suffer through all of the guilty feelings that accompany being a lying cheat. Aw, poor guy, I had him all wrong. Good for you Rick, your pious suffering has not gone unnoticed. Yours must truly be the gentlest of all souls.

But, for the rest of you selfish heathens, Happy Boxing Day!