Tis’ the Season

I know I haven’t written in almost a month, but I went through a real tired spell. I don’t know about you, but when I get tired my creativity and drive goes. So let’s catch you up on some things that have happened over the past month. Up to Thanksgiving the route was fairly boring. You know the feeling, its 3:00 am, no one is out and about and you just keep throwing papers to the same houses day after day. But then Thanksgiving weekend came. Now I don’t know what it’s like where you are but here in the SCV it’s a game of “bigger and better” when it comes to Christmas lights and the ornamentation of the front yard. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I started to see Scissor Lifts and other lifts so that the people in the neighborhoods I deliver to could decorate their light standards and in a lot of cases they string lights across the streets. My wife and I do plan in the next few weeks to visit these streets at night when they are all lit so that I can take pictures to shop you what it looks like. So that day was a bit challenging from a driving stand point, but by Sunday most of the lights were up and the heavy equipment gone. I kinda felt like Charlie Brown in his Christmas special when he says “Isn't there anyone out there who can tell me what Christmas is all about?” There is also a saying the Lucy makes in this cartoon that is fitting for these streets. She says “Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.”

Anyways……the day after Thanksgiving was fun. It was dodge the crazy people morning. It’s funny how people react to the sales that are out there. When Wal-Mart and Best Buy are having big sales people get up at the craziest hours. So at 3:00 am the streets looked like they do at 7:00 am with one exception. That exception is that half the people were half, or more, asleep and the other half though that since it was 3:00 am I must be the only one this crazy. Well WRONG! You almost killed the paperboy about a hundred times. These people were driving around so crazy that it reminded me of ……….well……….of me on every other morning when they’re not up. That was an experience that I would choose not to experience again.

The last thing I’ll tell you about is the Christmas tree I almost ran into. Yes I almost ran into a Christmas tree. No I did not fall asleep at the wheel and suddenly find myself in someone’s yard heading for their living room. The tree was in the middle of the street on a cul-de-sac. The Saturday after Thanksgiving I was doing my normal stuff…..you know…..singing Christmas songs along with the radio (thank goodness it’s just me at 3 am) looking at my route list and checking my papers when I looked up and wham-o there it was, a tree in the middle of the street. Boy I hit the brakes so hard and fortunately stopped short of it. Now I could just see explaining to my boss at the newspaper that I nailed someone’s Christmas tree and no it wasn’t in their house. How embarrassing would that be? Well I will get a picture of this for you to see to. My wife has informed me that this has become quite popular, so I guess I better watch for more trees popping up in the middle of the road all of a sudden.

I do know one thing though, and that is that I am very thankful that the Lord has watched over me in this time. I am thankful that He has sustained me and that if it were up to me I’d still be in bed. But the thing I am most thankful for right now is that my Bruins, by the grace of God (and believe me it was the grace of God), beat the Trojans. Nothing has made this time more joyous than watching all those USC fans wallow in the pain that my lowly Bruins killed their National Title chances.