Did you survive Thanksgiving?

You know, visiting with relatives, too much food, and way too much football?

Somehow, this festival, designed to commemorate the bounty of the fall harvest that may or may not have happened in the way the common lore says it did, has morphed into a precursor of the dreaded Black Friday.

I know the holiday season is the lifeblood of our friends in the retail world. I don’t begrudge them for making a living and feeding their family. However, I do resent the national grocery chain Whole Foods for boycotting our Maine lobsters.

Note to Whole Foods (known in many circles as Whole Paycheck for their stratospheric price schedules), there is no evidence our lobster fishers are harming northern right whales. If you use the same argument you used to boycott Maine lobsters, you will quit carrying California wine because someone might, just might, get a holiday snootful, jump in the car, run over a dog, or, perish the thought, harm someone’s grandkid.

Sure, that is going to happen. Right?

I guess those highly paid Whole Foods executives are bright. So, I presume they would rethink their decision to boycott our local lobstermen’s catch.

These lobstermen don’t kill whales and don’t even dislike them. They are just working their traditional trade so they can feed their kids. OK?

The other day, a federal judge put a lawsuit about this matter on hold for two years, to allow the parties time to work out a compromise. Do you think you should follow suit?

But I digress. Where was I in this rant? Oh, yes, it was the ultra-commercialization of Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season. That brings to mind, Tom Lehrer. At least it does for me.

To readers who think world history began when smartphones appeared in the back pocket of their jeans, Tom Lehrer was a Harvard math professor and wonderfully clever satirist.

Once upon a time, American college kids wore out his clever recordings satirizing modern life. He made fun of everything from drug dealers (The Old Dope Peddler), the Second Vatican Council (Vatican Rag), to former Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. Do you remember him? He was the guy who switched sides after Hitler died, moved to America, and headed our space rocket programs.

Lehrer, who was drafted into the Army, served at the National Security Council where he claimed to have invented the Jello shot to avoid a military ban on booze. At least that is what Wikipedia claims. When he thought of the Christmas season, he wrote: “Angels we have heard on high, tell us to go out and buy.”

That seems to be the theme of Christmas 2022. Buy a tree, buy some lights, decorate it, and don’t forget to spend your way into the Poor House by filling up your credit cards with lots of stuff your relatives may, or may not, treasure.

This year, count me out.

My kids wanted me to insert myself into a large aluminum tube with a bunch of strangers who may or may not have COVID, fly a thousand miles to spend a couple of days, and repeat the cycle a week later. Dr. Fauci and friends suggest it is way too dangerous for an old dude like me to do. And the fare is way too expensive for a quick visit.

We decided to get together in the warmer months when we can have a nice long visit.

This year, I am not going to put up a tree. I am not going to tear the basement apart to find the treasured ornaments, including the lovely tree-topping star made from popsicle sticks by my number two grandson when he was in the first grade.

I am not going to take a whole day untangling and testing the lights.

I am not going to buy any new ornaments, although I was tempted by a dangling glass bobble resembling a couple of strips of bacon. And I love the charming handmade tree ornaments by local artist Sanny Norton.

No, I think l will dust off the tiny forest of ceramic trees and set them around the living room.

Come Christmas Eve, I will pour a glass of my favorite adult beverage, sit and watch the ceramic tree lights twinkle, listen to a CD of the Trapp Family singing Old World carols, and savor fond memories of Christmas past.

Ya, that is what I will do.

And you can bet I won’t be buying a turkey from Whole Foods, either.