TheBanyanTree: Full of Mucous

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I have a VHS of It’s a Wonderful Life, which is my favorite Christmas movie.
It takes a long time to set up the story, but once it gets going, I’m
entranced, even though I know every line word by word.  I’m always looking
for a Kleenex at the end.

But Ray and I watched this movie on TV last night.  Well, I watched part of
it.  I fell asleep on the couch and then woke up for an hour or so, and
finally dragged my carcass upstairs to bed, where I slept like a rock until
5:00 am this morning.  So I missed the climatic and tear-jerking end, but I
got a good night’s sleep anyway.  I’ll see if I can watch our tape of it
sometime before Christmas.

I think I collapsed last night, because earlier this week, my cold turned
into almost a sinus infection.  I went to urgent care after work on Monday,
because I was totally miserable.  The doctor told me that I was full of
mucous and prescribed a decongestant and a cough suppressant, although I
wasn’t coughing.

The urgent care visit was $40 and the drugs were $50, because I sent Ray to
get them, and he didn’t know to ask for generics, so the copay instead of
being$10 for each drug, was $25!  So that was $90 down the tubes to
eliminate my mucous, but I do feel better.  I’m still stuffed up and all,
but I’m functioning at least.

On the Christmas front, we mailed our Christmas cards yesterday.  And a few
cards are dribbling in for us.  We’re having a cash only and debt free
Christmas this year, so I’m waiting until I get paid next Friday to buy
anything.  It’s going to be a Grinch-like Christmas this year with a minimal
amount of gifts, because I still have to pay the bills, but we should be OK.

I’ll be able to look at myself in January.  These past few Christmases, I’ve
just charged, charged, and charged.  There is such an emphasis on buying,
buying, and buying in the media.  How can we have a Merry Christmas unless
we spend thousands of dollars?

I put a lot of pressure on myself, too.  We had big Christmases when I was a
kid, but my parents made a lot of our stuff, and my mother also shopped all
year for Christmas, which I have a difficult time doing.  I just feel weird
about Christmas shopping when it isn’t Christmas.  My mom would go out the
day after Christmas and start buying for the next.  She told me that when
she was growing up during the Depression, she was lucky if she got ONE gift
for Christmas and she didn’t want to do that to her family.

Well, sometimes I wish she had, because now I feel the same obligation to
keep up with Christmas Past.  So I piled on the gifts along with the debt.
Well, this Christmas, I’m getting back to basics.  I’m going back to the
patterns from my early adulthood when I had very little money and bought
very few gifts.  That’s the way it’s going to have to be.

I think what I really feel bad about is not having the extra money this year
to give to charities.  It seems a lot of them are in a funk this year with
the housing collapse and other economic problems.  I’m looking at a 16%
raise in my property taxes next year.  Our medical insurance premiums are
going up, plus we have to pay more out of our pockets for medical care.  Gas
and heating expenses are up, especially since we’re having a more manly
winter.  My company put off giving us our annual increases until January and
even so that miniscule raise is not a for sure thing.

With all those factors, I can’t afford to give to the food bank, Toys for
Tots, and Holiday Wishes like I could in the past.  I have to be able to put
food on my table, gas in my car, pay the bills, and the mortgage.  A
co-worker wrote out a check for $150 to help buy grocery gift cards for our
needy families.  I felt bad, because I only contributed $20 and that’s my
limit.

Ray and I have been watching Christmas movies on the Lifetime and Hallmark
channels this week.  The plots are always the same.  Some nice person or
family has a major problem right before Christmas and then some magic is
sprinkled and the problem is solved and everyone is happy.  It’s a story we
see again and again, but it’s a satisfying story, and that’s why we keep
watching.  And hoping that the magic will find us.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away.
~Eva Logue