Saturday commute x

for the choristers

I think, in every household that observes Christmas Day, there comes a moment when a guy's urge to get out and play, inflamed as it has been by importunings to linger in itchy pants, praise the nitrate breakfast, reciprocate the claustrophobic hugs of elders - in short, to look to the feelings of others - comes face to face with ferocious pressure to erupt into the nearest wave, snow bank, or romantic embrace, without the slightest regard for decorum in velocity or vector. 

I'm afraid that if we continue to approach this ancient crisis in holiday circulation from the point of view of denial, we are going to raise a generation much like ourselves. That's a job for rabbits.

There's nothing like a houseful of slow farts, clashing parfums, and endless fussing to hurl a fellow out the door. Nor is the torrent of annual good advice especially well calibrated for the intimacy it flaunts, or the orgy of connois-seurship much conducive to pleasure. [image subject to query of copyright]

It isn't natural to suffer so much coddling by Dickens' kitchen fumes, Thackeray's treacles, O'Neill's tipples. Good cheer is dross to good fun, and if guys were allowed to storyboard our Christmas daytimes, there would be a great deal more mirth at dinner. Don't stay home without it.

There's a fresh roll of monochrome in the Leica, and a world compressed to the bursting point. Whit and I intend to be there when it happens, and we know we aren't the only ones.

It isn't so hard. Christmas ignites energy, ebullience. Tchaikovsky's ballet and our own Recessional told us so. As we lay aside our choris-ter's bright crucifix, and fold away its black and silken cord, it can even be amazing.