I know, I know, big box stores have been shamelessly pitching Christmas since Labor Day, and every other ad on TV has been doing public relations work for Santa since Halloween, but for the conventionalists among us, the winter holidays officially blast into fourth gear this week.
I’ve always liked this time of year.
As a lad, the holidays meant some much-needed time away from school, where I was never very comfortable. Later in life, it meant a break from work, which I liked better than school, but not enough that I didn’t welcome an occasional day off here and there during the closing stretch heading toward a new year.
I’m not at all religious, but I do enjoy the heartwarming stories behind Christmas.
An innocent baby in a manger miraculously born to a virgin, three wise men with riches to share, a brilliant star guiding the way, and weary shepherds and animals rejoicing about it all … None of it holds up under inspection, of course, and the script’s been re-written many times over the centuries, but the characters make the play.
And you’ll do no better than a fat, jolly bearded guy, who lives in the North Pole and does nothing but eat cookies, while he checks lists and employs happy elves to make toys. Then, powered by eight or nine flying reindeer, depending on the weather, jets around the globe in his sleigh on Christmas Eve dumping off presents to millions and millions of good little girls and boys.
The stories are great, but it’s the spirit they impart that I like best of all. The lights, the bells, the trees, and perhaps, just perhaps, accepting that no matter what cradle we started in, we are all equal under God, and in this madness together.
So if hungry kids are provided free lunches at school, maybe that’s not so bad … if sick children can get decent healthcare by taxing billionaires just a pittance of their obscene wealth, who is really any poorer for it … if seniors are treated with the love, respect and dignity they have most certainly earned, who loses … if every child can wake up and find at least one gift from Santa on Christmas morning, does anybody really suffer for it?
You’d think if we needed all these religions around at all, the very least they could do is teach this sort of basic kindness …
Thursday, of course, is Thanksgiving.
There’s no religion I am aware of that stands up this holiday, but the premise behind it, thanks and giving, is awesome. Unlike Christmas, the story depicting the idea of the holiday itself is wildly hurtful and insulting.
The tale of Thanksgiving is very loosely constructed around the plot that on a gray, New England day in November of 1621, some invaders from Europe called “Pilgrims” invited a bunch of the hometown people called “natives” over to dinner to help celebrate their initial harvest in the new place, and thank them for getting along pretty well, even though like their barbarous ancestors, they were keen on trying to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Now please pass the stuffing.
I really can’t conceive of just how incredibly white the people were that concocted this doozy of a holiday. Sanitizing the pure evil of brutally oppressing human beings by spinning a tale that implies they were actually pretty thankful for their oppression, really takes several heaping helpings of unmitigated gall.
I reckon they are direct ancestors of the ultra-whites like Ron DeSantis, who recently hit his fat head on every branch while sliding down his crooked family tree and regaling us about how much African Americans actually benefited from slavery.
Since we are going to keep celebrating Thanksgiving, though, I say we go into the holiday with a clear-eyed understanding of its absurd beginning, and embrace the thanks and the giving parts that have somehow survived that cold, initial harvest.
Frankly, I don’t give thanks enough, and could stand to give more.
Even though we lost two beloved family members this year, I still consider myself to be a very lucky guy. I am thankful for my life, my family and my friends. I am thankful that I never go hungry, and have a sturdy roof over my head. I am thankful for all the animals and Mother Nature.
Speaking of mothers, I used this space last year to to give thanks to the women of this world. This year I am going to do that again, because it is absolutely impossible to give enough thanks to women in one lifetime.
Women don’t receive the equal pay nor have the rights I do, yet are still better in every way. I wonder if religion has had anything to do with their lack of respect over the years?
I want to mention four women in particular today, starting with my sister-in-law, Peg, and my little sister, Suzanne. Peg was taken from us by the evil Alzheimer’s in April, and Suzanne by its evil twin, cancer, just weeks ago.
They were mothers and wives and far too young. They gave this world more than they ever received. I am thankful to have known them, and will miss them terribly this holiday season.
I want to end my piece today by telling you one more holiday story and celebrating a pair of heroic women here in Madison, Wisconsin. This is a heartwarming tale that is backed by facts, and fueled by giving.
Once upon a time, seven years ago this month, the United States of America was struck an evil blow by a vindictive orange monster, who cared little for his country and a lot for himself.
Despite rarely, if ever, attending church in his miserable, privileged life, he did know how to talk to many of the people who did. By simply opening his dirty mouth, he was able to get to a cold place tucked inside their tiny hearts that made caging children seem appealing, and assaulting women OK, because if you climbed down into the deranged darkness far enough where he lived … they let you.
There was shock and sickness among many millions when the orange beast ascended to power. Many of them like me knew they hadn’t done enough to stop him, and were determined to make sure this never, ever happened again.
I was still pretty new to Madison when I met Claudia Pogreba and Barbara Arnold in the run-up to the 2018 Midterms. By then, the resistance was building and we were looking to do whatever was necessary to ensure the orange monster and his pathetic party were put out of power.
Claudia and Barbara headed Team Gold, a progressive volunteer group in town predominated by women that was founded in 2008 and helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency.
For months leading up to the 2018 Midterm Elections they opened their homes, and day after day civilian activists rolled through, and fueled with coffee, hope and beating hearts knocked on doors, worked the phones and did whatever was necessary to drive the vote.
When the results came in, Democrats had delivered the promised Blue Wave and cleansed the nation. It swamped the orange monster’s pathetic party, while elevating another woman, Nancy Pelosi, to the top of the wave, where she would helm us through this terrible storm.
Locally, Democrats knocked off the dangerous idiot, Scott Walker, to take back the governor seat, and also won the attorney general race, and easily defended the great Tammy Baldwin’s Senate seat.
The Democratic vote in Dane County during that Midterm Election, which is the home of Madison, was absolutely mind-boggling. The turnout was an unheard of 88 percent, and Democrats outvoted Republicans by about a 3-to-1 clip, or roughly 220,000 to 69,000.
You read all that right.
In 2020, Barbara and Claudia once again opened their homes and hearts and helped fuel a turnout that actually increased to a whopping 90 percent, and pushed Joe Biden to victory here in Wisconsin, and ultimately into the White House, where the orange monster was sent packing to join other Florida men like DeSantis assaulting the backward state’s many golf courses.
I wish I could tell you that everybody lived happily ever after, but as you know, this story is still in the telling stage.
Know this, though: You could call an election for anything right now, and enough of us would assemble here in Madison to make sure we won it. This is all thanks to good people like Claudia and Barbara, who give selflessly of themselves for the good of the country.
When you gather around your Thanksgiving tables Thursday, I hope you will celebrate the women of your life, and maybe even tell a story or two about ’em.
After all, as far as I am concerned, they are the reason for the season.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough
