christmas

Chris Knight's avatar

So, this past week a memory just popped into mind.  About something I had written a long time ago as a student at Elon.  Awhile back I discovered an online archive of every issue of The Pendulum, which was the college’s newspaper.  I’ve shared a few of the op-ed pieces I wrote for the paper already.

I don’t know why I found myself thinking of it but I went looking for it.  And lo and behold I not only found it, but I realized today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication!

Maybe there is something at work, that such synchronicity happened right just now.

For many years at Christmas time I posted the text of this piece.  It was a holiday tradition for this blog.  But I haven’t done that in a long while.  Maybe this year would be a good occasion to bring that tradition back.

Well ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

It was 1983, forty whole years ago.  At the White House.  “Santa Claus” came that year in the form of Mr. T.  Here he is with beloved First Lady Nancy Reagan sitting on his lap:

Damn it.  What the hell has become of us, since then?

We aren’t like that anymore.  Our culture and society has become so degenerated that something so playful like that photo would be practically impossible in today’s environment.

But once, in seemingly a better time and a different reality, we honestly were like that.

I like to believe that we could be again.

...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Yes, at  12:01 this morning a lot of radio stations began their playing two entire months of Christmas music.  Something which I have never liked.

Good friend of this blog Lee Shelton made this graphic several years ago.  He said that it’s time to bring it back out and I agree wholeheartedly…

Wow.  The original pic is from 2004.  A few months before I began this blog.  I weigh about 30 pounds more now.  A lot of that I gained in a very short period of time beginning in late 2008, after going on some medication for treatment mostly of depression.  I lost most of that but some of it still lingers.  I think that twenty years later I’m looking pretty healthy.

That’s my father you see behind me.  I remember exactly which cap it is that he’s wearing.

Okay well anyhoo, you have all been duly notified.  Look, ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Today is December 30th.  And there is a major radio station nearby that is still playing wall to wall Christmas music.  My supervisor told me that they don’t stop until New Year’s Day.

At first I thought that was a little overkill.  Something that I touched upon in a post from last year.  I still believe that starting up the Christmas season earlier and earlier makes the entire year go by much too fast.

But while listening to the music while dining out last night (I still think that “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time” by Paul McCartney sounds too much like the theme from A Clockwork Orange), it gradually dawned on me: that letting the songs play on after Christmas Day, is truly honoring the holiday and everything about it.

And the more I ponder it, the more I like it.  There is something just very right...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Hey gang, hope the holidays have been going well for y’all!  Christmas was rather good on this end.  I wound up with some Star Wars, some LEGO sets (Christmas is NEVER complete for me without Star Wars and LEGO no matter how old I get), some clothing, my mini dachshund Tammy received a bunch of toys.  And one way or another a lot of new cooking stuff came into my possession.

And speaking of cooking, steer your peepers onto this bad boy:

That’s the first turkey I’ve been able to deep-fry since Christmas 2013!  Between my father passing away just before the following Thanksgiving, journeying across America and to a new hometown, getting situated in a house etc. it just wasn’t practical all this time.

But Christmas Eve 2019 was a glorious return to feeding my irrational addiction to fried turkey.  I got a shiny new rig and it was
...
Read more

Chris Knight's avatar





Awright, c’mon people.  We gotta stop this.  As Barney Fife said, “Nip it in the bud!”  It’s gone on far enough.  If we don’t put an end to it now, in a few years the tinsel will start going up right around when Major League Baseball is having the all-star game.

Or maybe once again your friend and humble narrator is on the losing side of history.  Sometimes I feel like Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers: flailing arms at indifferent traffic, vainly hoping that somebody, anybody will heed the warning.
Last week was Halloween.  That afternoon I was on the highway en route to meet a client and started scanning through radio stations.  More than a few had well-curated themes for the day (“Thriller”, “Dark Lady”, even “Clap For The Wolfman” etc.).  Stopping on one channel, I was expecting
...
Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Here I am, the day after Christmas 2014.  And I’m only writing this because a lot of people were praying for me yesterday, that I might get through this holiday.

Grief is hard enough already.  It’s especially heartbreaking when it comes so close to the holiday season and you see that empty chair at the table.  It’s not something that I haven’t experienced already.  Mom passed away three days after Christmas three years ago, and because of that there was already a shadow cast over Christmas and New Year’s.  On my 26th birthday we buried my grandmother: something that I’m always reminded of on that day of the year.

This year has been more excruciating than anything I was prepared for.  Because it’s so fresh.  Because it’s only now sinking in that Dad is gone and is not coming back, no matter how many times I keep expecting him to ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Okay, that’s it.  I give up.  I didn’t know how having a Christmas this year was going to be at all possible.  In light of everything that’s happened in the past nearly two months, yuletide joy was something that seemed way past feasibility.  Although, I haven’t begrudged anyone from having that.  Just feels like I’m on the outside looking in this year, is all.

But then before tonight’s performance of It’s A Wonderful Life: The Musical two young ladies who I’ve been working backstage with surprised me with a little something.  And as I told Joy and Makia, this has to be the sweetest thing that has happened to me since Lord knows when.

Look!  Dalek action figures from Doctor Who!

Joy and Makia spotted these in a nearby store and… well, words cannot possibly convey how touched I am to be given these by two such wonderful people.  ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Good googeley moogely… it’s been ages since I posted any Sesame Street clips!!  I think maybe at least two years, maybe longer than that.  How in the world did I overlook such timeless material?  Shame on me!

Time to make up for it.  And boy howdy, do I get to make up for it…

I was waaaay young when this aired but I vividly remember it.  It was part of a Sesame Street Christmas special from… I think it was 1980?  The other part of it that’s still in my head is Big Bird sitting on top of the apartment building waiting for Santa, and wondering how in the world would the big guy get into those tiny little chimneys.

But this is the real highlight of the show: Bert and Ernie in an adaptation of O. Henry’s classic holiday tale “The Gift of the Magi”, as only Bert and ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

It occurred to me a few days ago that I had yet to post the traditional Christmas piece this year.  I don’t have any particular reason why that shouldn’t be done this year, except that in many ways this… well, it’s not the usual Christmas for me.

It was two years ago, three days after Christmas, that my mother passed away.  But it’s only been in the past few weeks that I’ve let that sink in, found myself able to let go of lingering matters that were there.  I got through Christmas last year because of some things that aren’t there this year.  Absent those, this is at last the holiday season that I’m letting myself be confronted with that loss (and a number of others).


I’m not going to avoid them.  It’s time to let them confront me and for me to come out the better for it.  That’s ...

Read more