Holiday season: family, lights, sounds

This holiday season of A.D. 2007 is turning out to be different yet still special (or memorable) for yours truly. By "holiday season" I mean everything from Thanksgiving Day to the end of the year/ New Year's.

To include today, St. Nicholas Day. In some cultures and countries around the world this day of 6 December is THE DAY for gift-giving (alternatively, Epiphany or 6 January serves for gift-giving). St. Nicholas, who definitely WAS a REAL person (as in "yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"), became renown for his generosity -- and hence he's the patron of gift-giving. I like this idea of 6 December (or 6 January) being the gift day, because it keeps the focus of 25 December on the coming of God to Earth as the firstborn baby of Mary of Nazareth, delivered in humble surroundings in Bethlehem. Let me add that Spanish-speaking areas are among those which do the afore-mentioned gift-giving (on today or 6 January).

BUT. . . let me back up! I just defined the "holiday season" as commencing with Thanksgiving Day. And this year for the first time in seven I got to spend this very family-oriented holiday -- can you sing "over the river & thru the woods to grandmother's house we go'? -- with blood relatives! Yep, I was over on Fort Sam with "baby" brother Patrick, his wife LaRae and he youngest son, Zane, and his new wife, Misty. And my sister-in-law is a TERRIFIC cook! I cherished every minute of being there in Patrick's quarters celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family!

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate that the "Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner" is put on in the Convention center, for folk who don't have family with whom to celebrate. I've been there and deeply appreciated and enjoyed it -- but nothing can beat family (in the blood relative sense) for spending such holidays as Thanksgiving.

You will notice that I do not call it "Turkey Day". Indeed, I get livid with anger whenever I hear anyone call it such. The day IS NOT about eating turkey and stuffing ourselves with other special foodstuffs! It's about giving thanks! (See my posting of 27n November 2006 about this.)

Now I'm beginning to enjoy the Advent-Christmas season. For details on why observing these holidays of December in San Antonio is so special, see my postings of 23 and 26 December 2006. Yep! this "Party City" has so-o-o-o many ways and means of observing holidays of December -- to include, let's not forget, Our Lady of Guadalupe Day on the 12th -- that it took TWO postings to cover even the ones with which I'm most familiar.

The lights shine brightly again, on the Incarnate Word campus, at Fiesta Texas for "Holiday in the Park" and the Riverwalk. And elsewhere. See my posting of 23 December A.D. 2006 for details. May all these Christmas lights of S.A. reflect the light of Christ shining on the world! Especially on this city that Spanish Franciscan missionaries founded on 1 May A.D. 1718 as a mission station for spreading the Gospel and civilization among the native Coahuiltecans.

Best of all, I look forward to spending Christmas or Christmas Eve with family here in San Antonio! (They will be brother Patrick, his wife LaRae & Dad's flying in from Boise.) For the first time in six Christmases! Family will make this Christmas of A.D. 2007 extra special!!!

FM radio station Q-101.9, lite rock, is again playing only Christmas songs, and even KKYX-AM 680, classic country music, has broadcast a couple of Christmas tunes, of country & Western artists, of course. One "country Christmas" song that really gets to me is "Conrad's Christmas Guest". It's a recitation by the late Grandpa Jones of Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw fame, with soft background music, about an elderly cobbler (I'd imagine a German fellow in a small town over in Germany). He gets excited because he dreamed that the Lord told him He would visit him on Christmas Day. For further details about "Conrad's Christmas Guest" see my posting of 26 December of last year. Here let me add that the moral of the story is that "love is the greatest gift of all". Amen!

Too, in many public places the sound systems are broadcasting the "songs of the season". The places include, of course, Fiesta Texas -- opened again this year for "Holiday in the Park" (after several years absence of a winter season). Most of the "songs of the season" broadcast in the park are secular; a couple are of the humorous genre, such as "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." On a more sentimental side, Guests and employees will hear the late Karen Carpenter (of The Carpenters) sing "Merry, Christmas, Darling".

On the other hand, in Texas State Square toward the rear of Los Festivales Mexican-theme area (one goes left to the Spassburg German area or right to Crackaxle Canyon's Western theme) there's an instrumental-music show blaring in loud volume at intervals. All the music is recorded Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I think. Strings of light on the square's colonnade, "light trees" atop it and a huge structure resembling a wrapped gift in the center, shine out and change colors in choreography to this music. Some songs played are spiritual, such as "Ring Christmas Bells".

Finally, let's not forget that malls and grocery stores alike are spreading holiday cheer also, via the recorded music -- Muzak? -- that permeates their buildings!

. Ring Christmas bells, merrily ring. . .
. Tell all the world, "Jesus is King!"