I Am Not Hamlet

The Sixth Day of Christmas—The great feast is now half over. Being herded through most stores you couldn’t tell it even occurred. Nary any green or red (though Christmas’ colors are white and gold) to be seen up and down the aisles, it shall not appear again until October. Consigned to a bargain bin or shelf, the symbols are packed away as our corporate masters wish us to think (obliquely) about another saint, Valentine, if they are directing our thoughts to holiday spending at all. All time is holy, claimed Sylvester I, whose feast day it is today. If that is true, why are you wasting time reading this blog post when you could notice that on days like this even the trees appear cold. Perhaps, you’d enviously observe the chickadees and juncos puffing up their feathers for extra warmth. Maybe you’d play with your children or talk to your friends, make love to your spouse, devour a writer’s words. Better yet, are there any post-Christmas sales still occurring?

Today is the sixth day of Christmas--halfway finished. I'm realizing this year that 10 presents or so, for each child, is quite a bit, even if many were inexpensive. We're going to have to retool this a bit--work out our celebration with fear and trembling (not just trembling at the amount of money spent). Today's feast is brought to you by Pope Sylvester I. I didn't realize there was a Sylvester II, much less the first one. Supposedly he's the inspiration for "Father Time" (S 1st, that is). Anyway, whenever I hear the name Sylvester, beyond the association with the cartoon cat with a saliva problem, I think of William Steig's endearing book, the only one of his I ever read as a child, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. The story has nothing to do with popes or even Christmas. All I can think of is poor Sylvester transformed into a rock, causing his parent's unimaginable heartache, and Sylvester's loneliness through a year(?) sitting in a...