The Color of Christmas

Being the old man that I am, when I think of Christmas, I get a visual of Bing Crosby singing “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas”.

Remember the ‘white’ Christmases?  I do.

They were good. They were warm. They were about people – loving – giving and appreciating people.  They were when the first snowfall was a thing of joy and happiness.  When people sang songs to one another on the street corners, in the stores and in their homes. When the giver meant more than the gift.

I watched the news this weekend and all I heard about was something called ‘black Friday’.  What’s a ‘ black’ Friday? And where did Thanksgiving go?  In early September, I seen lots of candy and costumes in the stores for a celebration of the darkside – Halloween.  By mid-September, this was backed up by decorations and sales for Christmas.  Did I miss something?  Halloween still wasn’t here – and where did Thanksgiving go?

When Halloween finally receded into history (on November 1st – didn’t take long), then it was all about something called ‘black Friday’.  Seems like Thanksgiving had moved from Thursday to Friday and had taken on a color – and from the results on the news broadcast – a not so very nice color. Pictures of mobs pushing, shoving and wrestling with one another over ‘things’. Fights. Children getting hit by adults. Shoppers getting pepper sprayed by other shoppers or police trying to control the mobs.  People dropping dead in the store and shoppers stepping on and over them. All for a piece of plastic or an electronic circuit board.  Where did Thanksgiving go?

I heard little about Thanksgiving.  When I did, it was about eating – parades and football.  Lots of the ‘giving’ and ‘taking’ part – little of the ‘Thanks’ part. Talk around Thanksgiving tables centered around the ‘game plan’ for this thing called ‘black’ Friday.  Many even totally erased any symbolise of Thanksgiving and bypassed it completely by pitching tents and camping out for the entire day in a line at their chosen ‘black’ Friday staging area.

Well, now this ‘black’ Friday has come and gone.  But has it?  Everytime the TV is turned on, they’re taking about ‘black’ Friday sales – on Saturday – Sunday – Monday – and onward right up to Christmas.  In fact, I seen a commercial talking about ‘post-Christmas’ sale.

It appears the color of Christmas has changed.  ’Black’ Friday is no longer a day – but is now the official kick off of ‘black’ December. It seems to me, what used to be a happy time of Thanks and Joy has merged together into a dark time of greed, anger, resentfulness, rudeness, stress and unhappiness.  No one sings on the corners or to their neighbors, but the airways are saturated with the commercial songs for days on end, without let up until they have no meaning and we’re only happy when they’ve stopped. Christmas has evolved into gifts; the biggest, the best, the coveted, the ‘what will so and so get me so that I can get something equal for so and so? Trees and lights and yards that compete one against another. And again I ask – where did Thanksgiving go?

I wonder what God thinks about all this. I wonder if this is what He had in mind. I’m not trying to say I know – I don’t. But I wonder all the same.

No matter what God thinks – I don’t think it’s what most people think it should be. I think everyone wants to have a Merry and happy Christmas – and that’s why there’s so many nostalgic and sentimental Christmas movies and stories flooding the markets and airways.  Some do have that and that is good.  But most, dream about having it and then merge into the chaotic streams jamming the roads and stores of ‘black’ December.  I know, many will say ‘Christmas and Thanksgiving’ are in the heart and I’m being wrong for judging others.  Yes, I agree – Christmas and Thanksgiving are in the hearts, and what’s in the hearts is reflected outward. And yes, I’m judging, but I think we each need to judge what is being reflected outward – don’t you?

“I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” is no longer just a song – but is a cry going up from the earth – from a world that dreams it but doesn’t know how to find it.  I think it would be nice to close all the stores on ‘black’ Friday and see if we can have a ‘white’ Christmas again.

How we miss Bing.

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A Gift for you

Hello All -

Been tied up this past week with a lot of things that have taken up all my time – and energy. Sometimes life takes us along on a ride and there’s not much we can do except fight to stay upright and ride it through.  We’re doing just that.

But – I did get to publish a story on Amazon and Smashwords!

And I’m giving it to you as a gift from me. Go to Smashwords and search for “Potatoes  dk levick”.  Use code # RL64M to buy it free.  It’s a short story so it won’t take much of your time away and I think you’ll enjoy it. If you do – then let me know and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a review on Smashwords and Amazon too.

If you’re not familiar with Smashwords, then you should check it out and join (it costs nothing to join). You’ll find lots of good writing there. Once you get something you can download it in various forms. The one I like best is .mobi which is the Kindle format. If you don’t have a Kindle that’s not an issue. You can go to Amazon.com and click on “All Departments” and then search for “Kindle for PC” and you can download the Kindle software to run on your computer.

That will allow you to gain access to all the Kindle features to include buying books. Once you download from Smashwords you can run it on your computer Kindle. It’s actually better than the Kindle itself because you have full color for the cover and any pictures.

“Potatoes” is a story about an old man who goes back to the scene of an accident. Take a few moments of  your time and take a look at it, I wrote it for you.

Until Next Time:

Embrace Life’s Bridges – For they Define Who You Are

dk Levick

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The Hill

Welcome Friends -

Sorry I missed last week. Was visiting family and dealing with the aftermath of a storm and then some business issues that came up.

This week’s post is written with a pondering heart while resting on ‘the hill’ and is a gift for each of you who ‘climb the hill’ and ponder.

I hope you enjoy….

The Hill

It is dark as I climb the hill,

so dark  I see no horizon. No moon. No stars. Only dark. I move slowly,  arms outstretched, feeling for trees to steer clear of, branches to grab and stones to avoid so as not to trip and stumble. I am sore, bruised and weary. What is this hill I climb? Why am I here? Why do I climb it? What sits at the top?  Why do I seek it?

I stop and sit -to rest and to ponder these things. Sitting thus, looking down into the blackness from where I have come, it looks no different than from where I am going – all is darkness.

Why am I climbing this hill?

Because it’s here.

But why am I here?

Because I’m alive.

I live – therefore I climb.

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Freedom to me is…

This weeks blog post is in conjunction with the Blog-A-licious Blog Tour. I am pleased to be on the tour along with some very interesting and informative writers. At the bottom of this post will be a listing of the addresses of the other bloggers also discussing this weeks subject. I encourage you to visit them also.

Thank you for visiting my blog, I hope you enjoy it.

The topic for this week’s Blog-A-licious Blog Tour is:

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 “Freedom To Me Is…”

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I sit in the corner of the room and I open my eyes…

… The room is small, eight feet by ten – smaller maybe, not any bigger for sure. The floor is cold, hard and wet. The walls are stone and they too are cold, hard and wet. They seep a gooey mixture of condensation and slime that smells and oozes down the walls forming green puddles on the floor.

There are no windows in the room and so – there is no light, except for a narrow slit cut through the bolted, heavy wooden door, no larger than the width of an eyeball and just a few inches long. I don’t know why it’s there, it just is but it allows a small sliver of dirty light to invade the room. I never knew light could be dirty but this light is dirty having a dingy, yellow pale just bright enough for me to see the outline of my hand (although it looks nothing like my hand but more closely resembles a mangy paw from some poor creature that’s been run over in the street). When I hold it in front of what was once my face but is now an infested, matted hair covered orb, it is unrecognizable as anything once belonging to my body.

The room stinks a foul, pungent odor of stale urine, decay and blood. Things crawl in here.

How I miss the privilege of light.

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The Book that Inspires Me the Most

This weeks blog post is in conjunction with the Blog-A-licious Blog Tour. I am pleased to be on the tour along with some very interesting and informative writers. At the bottom of this post will be a listing of the addresses of the other bloggers discussing this weeks subject. I encourage you to visit them also.

Thank you for visiting my blog, I hope you enjoy it and sign up to follow it.

The topic for this week’s Blog-A-licious Blog Tour is:

Okay, dk – what book inspires you the most? Wow! That’s a tough one. Kinda like going to a Baskin’s Ice Cream parlor and having to choose one flavor for the rest of your life.

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‘Honey Lunacy’ or “Pass me some o’ that honyed-mead will ya?”

It all started with the cave man - bonking his mate on the head and dragging her into his cave. Ahhh, The blessed wedding night!  

Honeymoon in a cave?

How times have changed…

…It’s 1837 now and “Honey-lunacy” is becoming quite popular being a far cry from the common “wedding night walk” where many a wedding night was ruined by going from one local establishment to another, with the entire entourage of family and friends in tow! By the time the bride and groom were finally alone on this once in a lifetime (?) night… they were useless to one another, if still conscious.

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Geriatrics S & M (and a word game too)

“How you coming on your S&M challenges?” she asked.

S&M challenges? Wow! (Good looking lady to be dabbling in whips and leather.)

“I’m sorry, I’m not into that stuff.” I answered, backing away slightly, wondering if she had a spiked collar in her purse. “Don’t really need to, ya know?  Gotten along just fine without it for a whole lot of years now. “

“I’m speaking of ‘social media challenges’” she answered tartly, while her eyes quickly scanned, processed and compartmentalized me leaving a smirk on her face. This wasn’t going well.

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Looking Through Trees

Silently the moon hides, the earth is black.

So black you cannot see the hand held in front of your face. The sky opens and the moon winks from behind the clouds offering you the silhouettes of the trees.

The moon likes playing with the earth.

The ground is cold and damp but warms quickly from your body as you sit on a cushion of leaves and dew-laden grass. The crisp pungent odor of earth mingled with fallen leaves rises from the ground – the perfume of the forest.  You breathe in, pulling the fragrance deep into your soul. It mixes with your blood, flows through your body filling it with the essence of earth. “From dust you came and to dust shall you return“. You merge with the forest.

You are alive. The forest knows you and it welcomes you.

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The Cathedral in the Woods

He liked being alone in the woods long before the sun’s first light broke upon the trees, piercing a darkness so thick you could feel it peel away from your skin as you stealthily moved through the cold night air. It was a comfort the old man yearned for in a world turned upside down for him.

In those pre-dawn hours, alone in the forest, the night cold and close around him, the world was a different place and time – a special place and time – his place and time. A place and time found nowhere else on earth. Where the ‘day’ creatures were slowly waking up, preparing to forage and the ‘night’ creatures were silently slipping through the darkness, to beat the approaching light, scurrying to the safety of their “homes”. It’s the quiet time in nature’s clock, when the mind and soul can find that single thread of unity that enables understanding – and healing.

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