I went Christmas shopping on the Boulevard today. Usually, I have gotten every present I need to get there on Christmas Eve. Today--nada. I haven't been paying attention, I guess. Many of the old stores are gone. I went to Williams and Sonoma, but even that was not very Christmas. I guess no capitalist corporations or public entities can chance being seen as a Christmas store any longer. There is far too much money in the non-traditional market. This is simply a festive season of lights now, I guess.
So I drove all over town looking for gifts for my mother. The streets were bare. There was not much hustle going on. It struck me that I didn't see any gift wrapping tables set up this year. None at all. They used to be around every corner, or so I remember. I always had my presents wrapped at one place or another.
So I got gift bags to put the presents in. And some ribbons and bows.
I went to my mother's for dinner. We were both blasé in the main. Afterwards, we went down the block to a neighbor's party. It was a big affair, but not so much for us. We stayed for forty-five minutes and then bounced. We didn't say goodbye.
"They will never notice we've gone," said mom.
When I left her house, I drove down the Boulevard, just to see. It was packed bow to stern. You couldn't get a table at any one of the restaurants if you tried. It is not the same town I moved to. I've walked that Boulevard many a lonely Christmas Eves and saw nary a soul. You know what they say--"You Can't Go Home Again." Even if you never left.
There was no text to meet from the old Losers and Orphans group today. It had dwindled. Now it is dead.
I remember lying in bed and waiting for Santa when I was young. I would half awaken in the night, and I swear I could hear far off bells of the reindeer and the sleigh. I was an imaginative child and prone to romance even then.
I doubt I'll hear old Santa this year. You know. . . I didn't even see Santa at all this month. Poor old Santa.
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