Three Christmas Ghosts (And I Wasn't Even Drinking)

I was born a day before Jesus. This could be a plus, should I turn Republican and want to run for office. But I won’t and don’t.

The end of the year only reminds me of what else I am not and do not. Oops there goes another year, oops there goes another pint of beer is how the song goes.

By mid-January I being to thaw from feeling sorry for myself. Before that I’m a regular George Bailey, who, after all was just a big cry baby who wanted (and got) proof that life wouldn’t be the same without him.

Am I the only one who notices the extreme degree of resentment in that movie, the attitude Jimmy Stewart cops that the people of Bedford Falls are so simple that they wouldn’t be able to keep their town going if it weren’t for his intervention?

I guess even good guys have to be told how good they are every now and again. And again.

Not that I’m good like George Bailey-Jimmy Stewart. Nor do I resent friends and family for holding me back. I figure I’m pretty much where I am by my own accord or lack thereof.

Underachieving is underrated. The are advantages to being the star of “It’s an adequate life.”

Which reminds me I worked Christmas Eve, the police shift, getting cop reports, which at a small paper consists of calling local police and fire departments and stopping by the one in the main town, Elgin.

Mostly you hope whoever answers the phone doesn’t lie to you and that no one’s turkey caught fire or anyone’s uncle stabbed someone with a fork over the last pork chop.

Luckily, Christmas Eve was slow.

I heard on the radio in the morning that the fire department in the small town of East Dundee got a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. Nobody at the department knew this -- which pretty much sums up how DHS seems to work.

Just in case you were worried, there have been no Osama sightings in the Fox Valley. Grants formerly given to fire departments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency now are funneled through DHS.

I did have to check on a murder case, a stabbing of a homeless man earlier in the week. Cops being cops, I was told there was no news (turns out they gave the Tribune the guy’s name).

A few years ago, I had a Sunday shift and a teacher went nuts and stabbed his wife to death in front of his kids. A cop came and told the guy , who was on the lawn by this time, to put down his knife. He didn’t, and the cop shot him.

By the time I got to the house, cops weren’t letting anyone near the place. I played nice and went to the police station to wait for information.

I waited for at least an hour, then went into a deputy chief’s office. They basically retold me what I heard on the scanner, which is to say I was stonewalled.

I found out from the other paper the next day the names of those involved and that the husband and wife both died on the way to the hospital. The deputy chief knew these details, but, hey, why tell?

That’s the kind of crap you put up with when doing police reports. Some cops get it, some think they have to protect the public from ugly details.

Others tell whomever whatever they want, whenever, to, playing favorites in this silly game.

Anyway, on Christmas Eve, there were three homeless people sitting in the lobby. It was a bitter cold day and the station is used as a warming center.

So I go to see if maybe these guys knew the guy who was killed. Two of them were drunk, one of them passed out.

They looked like your stereotypical bums and oozed booze, but for the new coats and that they all had backpacks, like school kids.

The one sitting in the middle of the other two on the bench was a younger guy, maybe 30, with a clean shaven baby face and wearing a Chicago Bulls jacket.

He was super polite but seemed afraid to talk, while the other two were basically incoherent. I’m guessing he was on meds of some sort.

No pun intended, but it bummed me out. Where was this guy’s Clarence?

But what do you do? I could lie and say I got this guy a job and some medical treatment, but I went back to work instead and typed in the reports.

The next day I had another one of those Christmas moments. Over dinner at my folks, I informed them I am going through with the sex change.

Not. Just seeing who is paying attention.

I mentioned over dinner my reluctance to visit my one cousin’s house for dessert. Now my cousins are all nice people, have grown up to be upstanding citizens, even.

But there were seven of them in my one uncle’s clan alone. Seven kids means a shitload of stuff -- and a shitload for each and everyone of them when we were all growing up.

I never felt I got gipped, not even the time I got a lint brush from one of my uncle’s whose name is Tom.

We would usually have our semi-quiet Christmases (but for my dad’s disappearing year), then head over to Uncle Dan and Aunt Irene’s where even Christmas night there were packages still to open, toys yet to be played with.

It’s not like I’m Karl Marx, Jr., or Karl’s Jr., for that matter, which would make me a roast beef socialist.

It just sort of always overwhelmed me. At the same time, being from a smaller family, I wasn’t used to not being a center of attention. Not good at vying for the spotlight, I’d feel kind of left out, too.

So, this Christmas, diplomat that I am, I mention these old memories over dinner. Like I need pie, anyway, I joked.

And I didn’t say we should all stay home and boycott, just that I wasn’t up to going. Naturally, this led to a family squabble. We serve squabble right after the main course with many Danahey family dinners.

Showing how genetics works, my dad started to feel sorry for himself, wallowing about how his brothers never visit his house.

W all calmed down, and headed over for what my mom said would be dessert. I’ve a mild argument and lowered expectations for attending social functions helps, too, so I was mentally prepared.

My cousin and her clan live in a McMansion, decorated much like my aunt’s house, heavy with Italian stylings, which means sort of like an Olive Garden.

But I kid. My place, as I am the only one who frequents it, is often a hideous mess. Rats won’t even stop in, and squirrels confine themselves to a space off the roof.

It is decorated in a style called “Early Dorm” with mismatched furniture, odd, cheap knickknacks (toys really), and an overabundance of books and CDs. I should be the last one to talk about decorating.

Anyway, we get to my cousin’s and just like back in the day, at 7 at night they are still opening presents. I was laughing on the inside, eating chocolates on the outside.

Then my uncle decided it’s family picture time. I wound up being the guy from Sears, albeit one with four digital cameras to snap.

The funny thing is no one asked for any of us to be in any of the pictures, which I thought was sort of odd, and also proved my dad’s earlier point.

Keeping with the extended Christmastime entertainment metaphor, my third and final ghost appeared around the New Year.

On the Eve, I called my niece and nephew to remind them to leave a gift of a diaper and formula for the Baby New Year. (I am the Karl Rove of messing with the grade school set.)

Then I surprised my parents by heading to their house. I’m that kind of son.

OK, you caught me in a lie. My other option was a friend’s party, but there was a Hummer parked in front, which took up the whole street.

I know it’s shallow to judge people by what they drive. But the last time I was out with the Hummer people, I got blind sided into a heated discussion about W with a guy who thought Bush would win in a landslide because of how well the war in Iraq is being handled.

Guys who think like that are why Hummer people make me nervous.

Anyway, we rang in the New Year by watching the holiday classic, Witness, starring Harrison Ford, who falls in love with an Amish women whose son saw a murder.

We were all supposed to go to a movie New Year’s Day, but my mom and brother opted out. They all saw Phantom of the Opera earlier in the week. (Aside from gouging their eyes out with hot tire irons) how could they possibly top that for fun?

So my dad and I went to see the Howard Hughes’ biopic, The Aviator.

Having just had a birthday, it made me feel good, as I was one of the youngest people at the matinee.

I also was one of the few people laughing. I’m cruel and find obsessive compulsive disorder sort of funny, especially when it inflicts a goofy rich bastard.

It was well-made but shallow, glossing over topics like: how they hell did such a creepy guy get to bed such hot women?; what happened to the people whose house he crashed his plane into?; and how come rich people can get away with being so freaking weird?

Hypochondriac I am, I thought I had OCD, too. I didn’t want to wash my hands like Hughes, but felt an urge to talk like Katherine Hepburn and call everyone “dear.”

My dad enjoyed the movie and said he was going to get a book to learn more about Hughes. (Which means matinees are the after school specials for senior citizens.)

And that’s my third Yuletide memory, my dad enjoying a movie, me laughing about a loony genius billionaire.

It beat watching the Cotton Bowl.