Almost Christmas ©

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
There better not be, I killed all the little fuckers 15 years ago.

Christmas Eve has had many faces in my life of lives.
This will be my 48th Christmas Eve and I will be playing poker that night.
Some people, my parents being some of them argue that we shouldn’t be gambling on that night and in church instead.

Well I guess I could but in many ways what we are doing in closer to the actual event than what my mother would have me doing.

Isn’t life a gamble and wasn’t Jesus born in the most volatile part of the world and still is?
Three wise men showed up and brought Jesus, their host, gifts.
Hopefully six of my friends will unwisely loose their money to me, their host, that’s close isn’t it?

There will be lots of food and plenty to drink.
Eight people will have, three legs of lamb, thirty chicken souvlaki, five pounds of jumbo shrimp, roasted lemon potatoes, spanakopites, about 3 pounds of various cheeses and salads to dig into.
I have baked a double chocolate cake and cranked up the calories by tossing a can of black cherry pie filling into the mix with chocolate icing.
So there should be enough food for Archie, we can order pizza.

Ever since I was old enough to be on my own I have always saved Christmas Eve for my friends.
I know many people celebrate and have Christmas dinner at midnight with their families but ours always has had it on Christmas day.
Christmas Eve gives me the opportunity to spend Christmas with the part of my family that I don’t have blood ties with, my friends.
They are as much a part of my life as my family is and I try and treat them as such.

Many of my friends back then as even now don’t have family so Christmas would be spent alone watching TV or getting stoned and drunk in some empty pub.

I figured that there was no reason for everyone to be alone because they had no family; we all knew each other so why not enjoy the night in one place and become a family.
Ever since I have done my best to have an open house on Christmas eve for any of my friends who have no where to go and want to be with friends and it’s not always the same people which is good because it tells me that the ones that are not here are with family or have found someone to be with.

I flipped through the photo albums the other day and all the loose pictures stored in a box looking at some of the past Christmases I have had.
I don’t know how the hell I accumulated so many pictures.
There are faces from past Christmases that go back forty years.
I have to laugh at some of the clothes we wore back then, I wouldn’t be caught dead in some of the outfits today.
Many of the faces have aged from picture to picture as the years pass by but the smiles stay the same.

Then there are the faces the will forever remain ageless and will remain that way in our hearts until we meet again in the big tomorrow but for now their smiles brightens my past.

As I look at each picture I could see the sparkle in their eyes because they are happy to be with friends and enjoying this day as we gather to celebrate the birth of a religion, a way of life for many, Christian or not.

It’s funny, the Middle East is the birth place of so many religions and the two major ones are from there at about the same time give or take a couple of hundred years yet it’s the only place they don’t get along.
It’s as if Jesus and Mohammad were brothers that didn’t get along.
Can we send them to the corner for a time out?
Then the Jews get in it to and arguing starts, pissing everyone off because the Jews own the land around all the churches and mosques and are charging an entrance fee.
Hey it’s business.

Then Jesus gets Mohammad drunk on wine and he starts telling Jesus his tally whacker is bigger than his and whips it out for a measurement.
Jesus complains that he is circumcised and Mohammad has four inches of foreskin.
Yeah, uh huh.

To me, this sounds like what my friends will be like on Christmas Eve, then when midnight hits the sound of glasses will be heard crashing into each other and a roar will fill the room.
Will it be for the birth of Jesus or that we are all still here on Earth to say Happy Birthday to him for one more year but then again does it really matter as long as we are all happy and at peace with each other?

Merry Christmas My Friends and Happy Holidays to all of you who pass by here this Holiday Season.

Walker