Holiday Thoughts from Tales from a Dog Catcher: Best Wishes for a Happy New Year to All

I spent yesterday racing around trying to finish Christmas shopping. I waited for help at one store where an overworked and overwhelmed teenager seemed to be the only employee handling the fifty or so customers shouting questions at him. They were shopping for the holidays, but they seemed to forget that this poor young man was part of what we should all be trying to remember during this season - to be kinder to people.

I left.

Was I totally altruistic? No, probably not. I didn't want to wait either. It was worth it to go online and order it there and pick it up later today. - but perhaps I was partially altruistic because I didn't have the heart to ask him to help me when I noticed him leaning against a display case taking a moment's breather. I watched a very purposeful couple march over to him when they noticed he was alone, like they'd caught the big one. That's when I left. Got in my car and out of the parking lot, only getting beeped at twice. Picked up my kids and took them to Olive Garden for lunch, where after a while I remembered how children are like dogs.

One is a pet. Two are a pack.

I remembered Christmas's with my Mom, when we had nothing, yet she managed somehow to put presents under the tree. Waking up Christmas morning when I was 7 and lived in Arizona, to find my father had flown in from New York in the middle of the night to be there in the morning. Midnight Mass and holding candles in the darkness of the church. Holidays with so many of my favorite people, so many of them gone too soon. I thought about those holidays when I had no tree and no plans and worked through the night to allow others to spend the time with their family. I remember a Christmas Eve working a police dispatch desk on a midnight shift with my 11 month old son in a car seat next to my feet...a part-time job I took when I left teaching for a year to raise my son. Or, even better - the Christmas's when my children were new - when wrapping paper and boxes were more fun than anything inside of them. The years when my cousin and I would walk through the streets singing Christmas Carols - no malls, no crowds, no presents, no need.

I'm not saying I'm self actualized or anything...I can be just as materialistic as the next person. I once spent a holiday in so much self pity that I didn't want to even put up a tree or hang any lights. I didn't care. It was my good friend Michele who told me: "Go home, put up some damn lights and a tree. Get over yourself and remember that this is not about you." Smart advice from a smart woman.

Happy Holidays to everyone out there. Whether you celebrate Christmas, or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, or that made up Seinfeld holiday. Even if you don't celebrate anything at all - take a moment to appreciate all that you have. My friend Bud at work said it best. "No matter how bad you may feel, you're on this side of the dirt and breathing."

I have many wise friends!

I wish all of you the best. Thank you to all my readers for your support and friendship. Much happiness and good health for a wonderful New Year.