Weather-wise, a northern California Christmas in Minnesota

Christmas Day 2011
Mankato, Minnesota

This morning I trotted out to pick up the paper in my bathrobe and slippers. Of course, there was no Free Press, being Christmas Day, which is fine with me as I'm a strong believer that paper carriers deserve a rest at least once a year. (My kids and I did our local Free Press route for a short while one winter when we were all younger. Just a couple of months was enough to realize it's a thankless job for very little pay.)

But the point is that I was in my bathrobe and slippers. On Christmas Day. In Minnesota.

And yesterday, Christmas Eve day, I was doing yard work. Not the shoveling snow kind. The raking leaves and moving brush kind. In shirtsleeves. No jacket.

In fact, this Christmas reminds me of the Christmases I enjoyed in northern California growing up: Sunny with mild temperatures. And of course no snow.

Is there something a bit odd here?

And then I came across this article from the New York Times that Tom Maertens had posted on Vox Verax. It reminds me of all the work we have to do in the coming years to make up for the past century or so of our American expectation that everyday should be Christmas.

That thought aside, I do wish all our Vox Verax readers a very pleasant Christmas day spent with family and friends.

Leigh Pomeroy

A light in a callous world where, contrary to everything the Savior said, the poor and powerless get short shrift

(LP note: This piece starts off slowly but ends with a hammer throw to the heart. I teach writing; this is a piece I will require future students to study....)

In a 10th Avenue deli, an elegant girl from the prairie manages a herd of damaged boys with grace and good humor

My Christmas Vision

BY GARRISON KEILLOR

My little girl was born within a week of Christmas and, believe you me, conceiving one to hatch on target like that is no simple task. It takes planning and biotechnology, and the male is force-fed raw oysters, and the female must hang upside down in a dark room for hours.

I was 55 at the time and remember it well. This bonus baby was the last grandchild in my family, a last attempt to breed some frivolity and high-spiritedness into our somber Anglo line, and we seem to have succeeded. She is a socialite and comedian who shows almost no interest in clothes or toys or other material goods, despite our best efforts, and who only craves beautiful experiences such as swimming, a train ride, a party, lunch in a cafe with tablecloths and oddball waiters, or a stage show with singing and dancing and not too much smooching (euuuuuuu).

We brought her to New York in time to catch the big Christmas snowstorm, and she got to see the Radio City Christmas show in which one Rockette kicked off a shoe and kept dancing though off-kilter. Priceless.

(Read the rest here.)