Given it’s December, this must be my annual holiday blog post!!! I cannot offer unending pop star carols in the background, no flashing lights, fake snow on plastic trees or even a mocha pumpkin cinnamon double whip with red and green sprinkles. Sorry.
I can point out how this holiday month for various religious traditions is filled with one thing I think we can all agree is one of the most wonderful creations of human beings. No not the Easy Bake Oven. Although, now that it’s genderless (not exactly sure how ‘experts’ identify the gender of a toy oven– but that’s another blog) we can all make cup cakes with a light bulb. But I digress. The gift of the holiday season is story in all of its forms.
Whether you are Buddhist, Wiccan, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Atheist, Secular Humanist, Great Spaghetti Monsterist, nothing or something in between or barely defined in your consciousness, we all carry around stories of what it means to be human in this world. And so we write short stories, plays, screen plays, poems, novels, radio plays, and every other form of story to answer one basic question–the same question Charlie Brown and Scrooge struggle to understand–Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?
Traditional holiday stories can have some depth and edge to them, although much of what we hear gets softened and homogenized to leave us with a taste of joy and hope. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, we have eleven other months in the year to get at the meaning of life through vampires, private investigators, serial killers, alien life forms, lustful lovers, and talking dogs.
So today I give you the gift of story. Yes, I bought it online at a steep discount and the shipping was free. That doesn’t mean I love you less.
Speaking of gift giving and stories. I humbly offer my two tales of Texas mayhem as the perfect stocking stuffer. TOXIC RELATIONSHIP and DIRTY WATER are both available at your favorite digital book store.
Happy Holidays.
