
On behalf on everyone here at Mitchieville, we would like to wish you and your family a wonderful, joyous Christmas. We hope that Santa is good to you and that you get everything you are looking for. Reality tells me though, that you’re not going to get half the things you are looking for, and I base that solely on the piss poor performance you decided to mail in this year. However, that’s downer talk, it’s not what any of us need at Christmas.
The theme for my Christmas message last year was one of love and charity. Times quickly changed though, this is a year like no other we have ever seen, therefore, my theme this year is about survival. As you are seeing on the tele, and reading on the web and in the papers, we are headed for some terrible times financially. One glimmer of hope though, these same people that are predicting a great depression, completely missed the financial collapse of the banks and financial system a few months back. They didn’t see it coming. Oopsie.
This Christmas season, I’d like you to tune out all the negative Nellies on the tele and on the web. I want you to put away all the negative thoughts and dire predictions, and I’d like you to concentrate on the one thing that really matters in life: Family. If the world goes to hell in a handbasket, if financial Armageddon happens tomorrow, it will never take away, or even diminish the love you have for your family and the love your family has for you.
I talk to my mom sometimes about what life was like for her in Ireland 60 years ago, I ask her what the *good old days* were like. Well, my mom and her 6 sisters and two brothers lived in a one bedroom, thatched roof piece of shit. No plumbing, no electricity, no nothing. 500 square feet of nothing. Her father went to war in 1941 and got captured by the Germans in 42, spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp. As a matter of fact, the Salvation Army couldn’t find him in any German records, so they told my moms family that he was dead. So, my moms family spent the next four years, until he arrived home unexpectedly, with the thought that their daddy was dead. There’s four Merry Christmases for you.
When my grandpa did come home, he came home half out of his mind and resumed making no money like he did before he left. Their family relied on handouts from neighbours and the good graces of the church. One thing that was free and regular though, were the beatings. Being Irish is special, one thing you can always count on is getting a good beating. My mom (and her family) got regular beatings from grandpa, the school masters, clerics, basically anyone with hands administered beatings.
Those were the good old days for my mom.
My mom tells me that there was very little good back then, the only thing she misses is the closeness of her family. They were tight, they went through hell and back and survived. They got bloodied and bruised, the starved every day, they had sweet fuck all, but they had each other, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters in life.
Anyway, I went on a tangent there, all I really meant to say was have a wonderful Christmas that’s full of love and joy. And in case you get too many presents, specifically gift cards for the liquor store, you can send them over to The Mayor–I’ll make sure they get distributed to those in need
BTW–that is NOT dmorris in the picture, however, those are his boots.