Category: Christmas

merry christmas 2014

whbeebe

This is the Christmas tree in the center of The Hotel Metropolitan in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan. It stretches a good two stories above the lobby floor. It’s covered in an immense number of glass decorations and lights. At any given moment, from the early morning until late in the evening, someone was having their photo taken in front of the tree. It was that popular. I had to wait a few moments for this relatively free view.

Shinto and Buddhism are the two primary Japanese religions. This is not to say that there are no Christian adherents in Japan. Japan was first exposed to Christianity, through Roman Catholicism, in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Unfortunately for the Franciscans who were performing missionary work in western Japan at the time, they wound up being banned and persecuted, starting in the turn of the seventeenth century. Christians would remain persecuted until 1873, when Protestants would begin missionary work anew. The celebration of Christmas itself didn’t become popular with the general non-Christian population like it is today until after World War II.

Today the Japanese seem to celebrate Christmas with the same fervor we do in the U.S. There are decorations and lights everywhere, and Christmas music (carols and more secular songs) is constantly playing in the background, in English. Yet, there are some things missing from Christmas in Japan. Yet there are no creches, no manger scenes. Nothing that overtly calls out to the Christian elements of Christmas. The celebration seems far more secular at least to a westerner such as myself.

This is not a criticism of the Japanese. I see way too much secularism in our Christmas celebrations. Way to much emphasis on Black Friday’s and Cyber Mondays. Being a photographer and a traveler I get constantly bombarded with emails advertising all sorts of special holiday sales on camera and electronics gear and travel destinations. I can easily ignore all that because I’m already too broke to buy anything else after about mid-November, and I’ve had about all the travel I can handle by the time I come home from Japan. I’m all tapped out. And yet the exhortation to “Buy! Buy! Buy!” keeps coming at me from all sides. I manage to tune all that out because I’m broke – and too numb to pay attention anymore.

This Christmas eve is the quiet before the hectic Christmas day. Tomorrow I’m going to spend time with both grown daughters, one for lunch and the other for dinner. We’re going to be even more busy on Christmas day than we were when the girls were little and living at home.

To me that’s the real gift this time of year, being with our girls and their respective boy friends, sharing what everyone is doing with their lives. I guess I managed not to make too may mistakes as a dad; they still want to see me and spend time with me. Time with my girls is the most precious gift of all, especially at Christmas.

merry christmas 2013

whbeebe1 Comment

I’d like to take moment and wish everyone a Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas. It’s been a long strange 2013 for me, and I’m thankful to have gotten through it all in far better shape than I thought I’d be in at this point in time. I was laid off from the MITRE Corp (due to sequestration, or so they said) back in April. I’m very thankful that I have my current job (the one that sent me to Japan in early December), and extremely thankful that my time laid off was as short as it was. I know from other’s experiences that engineers my age that are laid off will essentially never work again, or at least not in the profession that they were let go from.

I’m thankful for my marriage of nearly 30 years, and the woman who has stood by me and put up with me all that time.

I’m deeply thankful for our two daughters, those two sacred gifts of life that we helped raise, and we were blessed with the opportunity to watch as they grew from infants to young adults. It’s both blessed as well as tough to raise children in this day and time, but I wouldn’t have given up the opportunity for anything. If I have any regrets it’s that I may not have devoted enough time to the two girls. But there’s no reason to dwell on that, what’s done is done. I have plenty of lovely and loving memories, and so do they. And as they continue through life as grown adults, I still have many opportunities to share some of those coming moments with them. The adventures continue.

In spite of the Snowden revelations, I’m thankful I live in the United States. No government or society is ever perfect, especially not ours. As Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty.” The NSA excesses are but one example of the eternal vigilance we must practice, and then act upon, to nurture liberty and democracy. And while I’m at it I give thanks for whistleblowers like Edward Snowden.

And I’m thankful for all the men and women who have given their lives in defense of my freedom, both this year and in years past. We may argue the motivations of their commanders (and believe me I certainly do), all the way up to the Congress and the President, but it’s the troops at the sharp end who execute the orders and are called upon the make the ultimate sacrifice.

Finally, I’m thankful for the democratic process in this country that allows me to not just vote but to act upon my beliefs in a lawful manner. The biggest mistake I ever made was to vote not once, but twice, for Barack Hussein Obama II. If I’d known during the 2012 election season what I know now about the NSA excesses and his support of them, as well as his other foreign policies, especially the immoral drone wars, I would have done everything in my power to help vote him out of office. That knowledge came about through the exercising of our most precious Constitutional rights, a priceless gift that demands our continuous and vigilant support by whatever means necessary.