by LOU MAZE
RMG Humour Writer
Every year, the 25th of December sneaks up on me. I know I am not alone because other people share my bewilderment.
Dazed, confused, jingling around in their Reindeer slippers and stumbling through the wrapping paper wreckage of their livings rooms, they remind me of tornado survivors. “It happened so fast,” they say. “We never saw it coming.”
If you think Christmas isn’t like a tornado, think again. Tornados cost millions and the financial wreckage can last for years. They turn homes upside down. They also bring family, friends and communities together and like Santa they distribute a variety of materials over a wide surface area.
The big difference is the warning time. A tornado alarm sounds minutes before the actual event. People notice.
The Christmas alert starts before the candle in your Jack’O Lantern fizzles out and doesn’t let up until Valentine’s Day. By mid November, it’s a background buzzing you have learned to ignore.
Comparing Christmas to a destruction force of nature may lead you to believe that I don’t like it, when the truth is I love it.
I love it so much that I observe the extended version. Christmas starts on the 25th and ends with the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6.
This is when we celebrate the arrival of the Three Wise Men. Historians speculate that the Three Wise Men didn’t arrive until many months after the birth of Jesus. Which means getting around in the desert can be tricky and I am not the only one who can’t get their Christmas gifts out on time.
Not only is this extended Christmas, rooted in two millennia of sacred observance but it buys me time.
I get to put my tree up later. I can send my cards out on New Years day because it is still Christmas and the Pope said so. I can buy your present after I see what you got me. I have the church calendar to back me up and if you argue, that might be all you get this year.
It’s a loop-hole that procrastinators like me, rely on and it is open to anyone, of any faith. All you have to do is say, Feast of the Epiphany. Try it five times really fast. If you can say it, without laughing, lisping or spitting out candy cane shards, you have won yourself 12 more days of Tornado.
