Christmas present

     They’re all gone now.
   The elders you remember visiting or paying your family a visit over the holidays.
   Mothers are gone, too. Moms who made sure their bundles of joy were bundled up before they went outside to play in the cold and snow. You and your siblings and neighborhood friends had to keep yourselves entertained before the Christmas Day feast mom prepared was ready, and every setting was in its rightful place.
   Fathers, well, they’re gone, too. Dads who kept the sidewalks clear of ice and snow and picked up the Christmas tree and worked diligently all year long just to be able to pay for those special toys you and your siblings pestered him for as the holiday approached.
   It was a special time of year when you were a kid, but it caused a lot of stress on the grown-ups. Still, they always came through.
   Looking back, it was not always perfect.
   But the world works best when not everything comes off without the proverbial hitch.
   It prepares you for life.
   In spite of ourselves, a lot of us do turn into our parents. The circle of life and all that.
   Or perhaps it’s just God’s way of having a little fun with us at our own expense.
   You could never image that ever happening, but inheriting some of your parents’ features —- a nose here, a smile there, —- is not the last word.
   There’s responsibility. Fathers will tell their sons life doesn’t offer a man much more than that. And when you have a family of your own …. well, you know the rest of the lecture.
   Some of us put that off for as long as we can.
   We even travel great distances to safeguard our procrastination.
   Again this holiday season, we’re miles away from the ice and cold and family members we left behind.
   Merry Christmas is by phone, or sent by cards, some with money-holders, and nowadays by the technologically swiftness of e-mail and Facebook (with the obligatory way-too-cute photo of the little ones wearing reindeer ears.)
   Family members and friends you grew up with have all become their parents. And their links to immortality will do the same.
   Still, a recent survey found that fewer people are getting married.
   Politicians and family groups are concerned that the sacred bond of matrimony is being held hostage by some unseen faction responsible for the moral decay of our society.
   Some of those same groups and some news organizations believe that there is also a war against Christmas.
   America is going to hell in a holiday fruit basket.
   Such things never entered the thoughts of mom and pop or the elders back in the day.
   Then, they were part of the so-called “greatest generation.”
   A lot of nay-sayers get quality on-air TV time saying America has lost its greatness.
   Bah-humbug!
   Ghosts of Christmas past who haunt our memories year round but are most vivid this time of year would if they could echo that sentiment.
   They left us with the greatest gift of all to pass along.