It's Seasonal...

By Antonios Maltezos

This close to Christmas, I’m feeling the pressure to come up with something jolly, wishful, nostalgic, to talk about the kids and what we’ve got planned for them this year. I should maybe talk about the snow – we’ve had tons of it so far – and that extra special white Christmas feeling. And I should be sounding happy. When I was a quasi-rocker bum teenager tripping on Black Sabbath, I’d sing Little Drummer Boy if I was walking alone at night and it was snowing. So I do love Christmas. It is a time for wishful thinking, for looking back, maybe with a tinge of sadness, on all the Christmas past. But you know what? Frosty the Snowman was playing the other night, again, and I couldn’t get any of the kids to sit and watch it with me. I must have seen it twenty or more times in my life, but according to them, once is enough. I tried… I tried telling them Frosty doesn’t die in the end, he just goes away until we need him again the following Christmas. That’s the way it was for me. He was my annual heartbreak, a cherished heartbreak because it got me thinking about something I hadn’t experienced yet in real life. It was a good kind of painful. My Zoe gave me those big eyes and shook her head when I insisted she watch the cartoon. “N-uh huh, no way -- not me. You got me to watch it a few years ago, remember?” That’s right. That’s right. It’s worth repeating though. No? I tried getting my little Effy to sit on Santa’s lap the other day, so she could have her first picture taken with the old bugger, but the kid was mortified. Didn’t happen. And it didn’t help the guy was returning from a break and standing at the time, towering over me, daddy, by at least a head and a half, and completely silent the whole time, too. Creep! No ho, ho, nothing. The woman operating the Loto Quebec booth nearby was practically hanging over her glass partition trying to get a good look at my baby and have a good laugh. She’d obviously seen other children equally mortified by this Santa. What are we to do now? I was informed there was a really good Santa at another mall, but I’d already told Effy this giant one was the real thing. It’s pressure, a Christmasy pressure, and I don’t want to get all bah-humbug in the end, but man, do I ever feel it coming on. Oh, well, at least I know they’ll be thrilled with what’s waiting for them under the tree – exactly what they asked for. Me, all I want is another Charley Brown Christmas, and I’m good ‘til next year.