Sit Down Comedy … December 27th, 2019

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4271)

There’s that split second right before the reveal.

The last little piece of tape is peeled back, and the gift is in our hands.

Let me be clear—no one under the age of ten actually offers an immediate disappointed reaction to a Christmas present.

We have been taught to be cool.  Detached.

Yes—the cool detachment of the Christmas season.

If the present is to our liking, the reaction usually contains some form of profanity

“Oh, shit!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Oh, my God!”

When you hear these words, though inappropriate, it’s a great response to your selection.

If the gift is not favored, you may hear one of the following:

“Oh, neat. I was curious about these. So this is what it looks like.”

“What a thoughtful gift—certainly something I would never have gotten for myself.”

“After all the morning activities, you’ll have to sit down and explain this to me so I can enjoy it even more.”

“You sure topped yourself this year!”

“What a unique gift!”

These statements fall off our lips when we are confused or distraught with this year’s offering.

Yet we try to maintain our cool detachment.

Truthfully, as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is safely put away for making sandwiches, we are already considering to what degree we’ll allow ourselves to become involved in the holiday of newborn kings, elves and magical sleigh-riders.

It’s difficult to overcome the fear.

Like the fear of singing Christmas carols. It seems like a proper idea, and then you get in the middle of the second verse and everybody has a different interpretation of the words, and sometimes it ends up stopping dead while someone Googles the lyrics.

And oh, yes. Part of that cool detachment is the terror over being the person to actually beginning the Christmas carol. Maybe you feel the spirit’s right, or a friend nearby says, “You’re musical. Why don’t you get us started?”

There are so many things that can go wrong. Your voice can crack, or you can pitch the carol too high or too low, leaving all those who joined in trying to change the key in the middle of the chorus.

There is a great consensus with this cool detachment to emphatically insist that “Christmas is for the kids.”

Do we really want to believe that? We may love our children, but why would we sacrifice such an exciting adventure to their often-snotty attitudes—not to mention unwashed hands?

A creepy, cynical false humility can also cause us to cough up the phrase, “I don’t need anything…”

(First and foremost, this response to “What do you want for Christmas?” is unhelpful and annoying. And having watched each and every one of us shop at the store, buying countless items that we do not “need” means that we are open to excess. We’re not fooling anyone.

Next, I know it’s not politically correct to say this, but here I go:

Hanukkah–literally–cannot hold a candle to Christmas.

Jewish people know this.

It’s like going to a National Football League game and talking to the star quarterback about your son beginning Pop Warner Football. There’s no equivalency—therefore, there should be no competition.

Let me see—what’s another part of this cool, adult detachment? Here’s another one. We all must moan about the pressure to “get everything done.”

If America couldn’t bitch about how busy we all think we are, I’m not sure we could even carry on a conversation.

The cool detachment.

The reminder by a sullen friend that we must be careful not to be too rambunctious in our celebration, since “some people find Christmas to be a sad time.”

Or that religious fanatic you know, who insists that “Christmas is too commercial” and want to declare war on the devil.

Or your favorite atheist, who laments the inclusion of religion in our normal commerce.

I just fear that along with our insincerity about the presents we receive, we have developed a grown-up press release, which we offer to limit the joy of Christmas, turning it into a tedious act we perform for the good of family—especially “them young’uns.”

So, hark the herald, angels sing…

Christmas is one month out of the year when “good will toward men” is not a joke, but rather…

A heavenly demand.

 

Two Bits… August 11, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1972)

In case you didn’t know, two bits are a quarter.

In my lifetime, I have gone from hearing people saying, “a nickel doesn’t buy anything” to “a dime doesn’t buy much” to “a quarter is worthless” and if it weren’t for the ever-loving Dollar Store, we would be tempted to continue the decline.

Basically, I’ve got it figured that life only allows me to offer my two bits. If I spend less than that in my efforts, I end up being cheap and falling short of my dreams. If I try to spend more, I end up in debt to everybody, still explaining why I haven’t achieved much.

So thinking on that today, I decided how I would spend my quarter–two bits.

I wouldn’t give more than a penny for my thoughts, since often they are tempted to swerve into the worry lane. Worry is the most useless expenditure of our two bits–because if it’s important enough to be worthy of worry, it probably requires more effort than concern. And if it isn’t important enough for worry, we always look foolish for taking the detour.

Let me see–I would spend a nickel on prayer, if by prayer, you mean talking to God, listening to God, following what you’ve learned from Mother Nature, and being faithful instead of opinionated.

How about four cents for faith? Why four? It’s a nice alliteration (four for faith) and I also think that faith is just a little less powerful than we make it out to be. Many people would disagree, but I think our faith often flirts with presumption, fear, a bit of futility and a sense of superiority. True faith is finding something that’s substantially good in the first place and investing more of yourself in its advancement.

Moving along–I do think humor is worth a nickel. Humor and prayer are great teammates. While we’re waiting for our prayers to be answered, it’s better to be smiling than staring off in the distance. Good cheer is what keeps us from believing that our prayers are being ignored, and also helps us target our faith in toward joy.

That leaves me a dime. I would invest that dime in my talent. None of us know how things are going to pan out after we die, and the only thing available is this next breath that fills our lungs with the possibility of usefulness. So focusing on my talent–using it well, perfecting it, multiplying it and placing it into the right situations–is the greatest gift I can offer to the progress of humankind. It may not be a lot, but it’s nice to have it available so if someone asks, you don’t have to waste time being shy or having to rummage through your closet.

So there you go–my two bits.

It’s heavy on using what God has already given me, staying in contact with Him, giggling more than Googling, finding the right spot to insert my faith, and avoiding the stubbornness of worry.

How will you use your two bits? Because if we put them all together–two bits, four bits, six bits–we eventually get a dollar.

And then maybe we can change the world… because the buck will stop here.

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