By Dan Mackie
For the Valley News
When I was a kid, I thought it was my duty as a right-thinking American to watch every Christmas TV special I could. Frosty, Rudolph, Mickey, Bing, the Norelco Santa — all were part of my holiday viewing fest.
I thought I could get into the holiday spirit by watching TV until my irises turned red and green. Instead, my head was filled with bad songs and worse jingles, and my blood sugar roiled with chocolate and candy canes, so much so that it wasn’t until March that I could concentrate on anything at school for more than four seconds.
Some years I wore cowboy pajamas and put a cushion in front of our old console TV so that I could cozy up and warm myself with the radiation it emitted.
“Move back, it will ruin your eyes,” said my mother. But I didn’t believe that anything as good as television could be bad. “No, it won’t,’’ I responded, and blinked as I looked at the fuzzy figure on the other side of the room who sounded like my mother. “And even if it did, I’d just eat some Wonder Bread, which builds a body 12 ways, including eyeballs.”
I don’t watch Christmas specials anymore. I’m not in the target demographic. The other day I noticed that local PBS stations are running a Radio City Music Hall holiday show in between fund-raising breaks. There’s nothing like leggy Rockettes high-kicking through The 12 Days of Christmas to make me envy my Jewish and Buddhist neighbors.
Nevertheless, there’s a part of me, and brain scientists could locate it if they weren’t spending all their time on “meaningful’’ research, where the messages of those bygone Christmas specials are buried. Brain scans could find the hidden Medulla Nativitatis, activated by the happy/sad piano music of A Charlie Brown’s Christmas, or Andy Williams crooning Oh Holy Night. The synapses probably jump like jumping beans on a trampoline when Linus explains the “real meaning of Christmas,’’ or Andy passes out fake presents to family members as he sings It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Kids nowadays have video games and Youtube, but my generation had nothing but network TV. We had our families, too; I was one of five kids. But that just meant that you had to arrive early to get a prime viewing spot on the couch.
No wonder that I was thinking this year that I had neglected a piece of emergency planning that would have seemed sensible in my youth.
What would I do if I had to step up and “Save Christmas?” This was the plot of many a B-list holiday special. All sorts of characters were forced into filling Santa’s boots, and guiding Reindeer around the world delivering Christmas cheer and consumer magic without the benefit of credit cards.
I know that Oprah could save Christmas, if it came to that. President Obama, too, or so it seemed during the last election, before all the complications came up. (’Tis the season for a surge?) The Fed should be up to it, but it’s already overextended. Congress? Christmas 2015, at the earliest.
So how could I save Christmas with my modest skills and resources? I don’t fly. I’m not good at building things, so I’d have to import from China. I’m also, truth be told, a little uncomfortable around elves, who for all I know are undocumented workers.
If I were to save Christmas, it would have to be by committee. My mind turns to the Flying Elvises parachute team for some reason. And the 82nd Airborne, out of loyalty to my late father-in-law.
Get me that pilot who landed the plane on the Hudson River. The owners of the New York Yankees, who have bags of money for financing. Maybe the board of some investment bank, if they could lay off the bonuses for awhile.
Line up brainiac Steve Jobs from Apple. The whole cast of the Today show, since they are so perky they could make sleighs fly. Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin could be the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas future (but only if we don’t change our ways).
Tiger Woods might be available, I hear, but I’m not going there, and he shouldn’t have either.
Or maybe just forget the whole thing. If Santa called me with Swine Flu, Reindeer Croup or whatever, I might tell him to just cancel the global gift tour. “The real meaning of Christmas, Santa, is in our hearts,’’ I’d say. “It’s all about love, and beginnings, and hope. There’s a real Christmas story, Santa, but you won’t find it in the malls, or in a catalog. ‘’
“Ho, ho, ho,’’ Santa would say. “I’m calling Donald Trump. He knows how to make things happen.’’
I would certainly understand. Santa is a git-er-done kind of guy, by necessity. He’s a list-maker and a list-checker, not just once, but twice. Which is almost obsessive, but it works for him, and all the good little boys and girls tucked in their beds, even the ones listening to hip-hop on iPods.
But anyway, I’d say thanks for the memories, Santa. Which reminds me of another Christmas special …
The writer is a resident of West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.

By Dan Mackie
Among the rules I live by is this: If I’m going to wait in a long line I want World Series tickets, or the functional equivalent. On Black Friday 2009 I broke the rule.
The world goes crazy on Black Friday, the super shopping day that seems perfect for insomniacs and hysterics. Stores open at midnight, 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m., and, for the slug-a-beds, 6 a.m., with deals, deals, deals. Did I say deals?
Store fliers make grand promises. Doors will be busted. Prices will plunge. Much like the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, there’s a certain run-for-your-life energy. Nothing like sharp horns on a seriously annoyed bull to make you focus. Same thing with $500 off a TV that’s so enormous you might have to tear down a wall to make it fit. (Manufacturer’s disclaimer: avoid load-bearing walls if possible.)
I am both fascinated and repulsed by Black Friday. The idea of standing in a line of 400 people to nab a Tickle Me Elmo with GPS and Belly Cam makes me feel slightly ill. And yet, if a bargain is big enough …
A couple of decades ago we joined the Worldwide Cabbage Patch Frenzy, a brief epoch when adults felt that children’s lives would be ruined if they didn’t have a puffy-faced, ugly little doll under the tree. Upper Valley adults drove to Canada to find them, or paid Cabbage Patch scalpers hundreds of dollars. Others spent vacation days in lines. I don’t remember how we got our little cabbages, but I’m sure it involved degrading behaviors.
My kids pronounced them The Best Toy Ever, and promised to cherish them always, or for a couple of weeks, whichever came first. Eventually one Cabby was defaced with permanent magic marker. (Our home crime investigation unit determined that sibling rivalry may have been a factor.)
Since then I’ve avoided toy hysteria, now long behind us as an issue. I’ve been tempted by the Black Friday hype, though, mostly because I torment myself by perusing fliers for high-tech electronics — my weakness. I begin by browsing, admitting little interest. Much as trout lazily peruse fishermen’s lures, I suppose. One minute you’re just looking, the next you’re sizzling in a pan.
I made a couple of unsuccessful Black Friday forays in years past. Both times the crowds and mayhem at our super mammoth electronics store repulsed me. (I understand that the organization has gotten better, with coupons and such, but I may never see that first-hand.) I gave up after I stood in a purchase line for awhile, anxious that I might be in the wrong line. I asked a dazed wandering sales associate if there were any of my items left. He said he didn’t know. No one knew.
Forget the $198 laptops. Those only go to the sorts of people who would have led the charge at Gettysburg into roaring rifles, bayonets and canon smoke. “Attention shoppers, we have limited quantities,’’ is an announcement that sends them into an adrenalin fury, ready to jump over barricades, greeters, etc.
Bottom line: I have retreated from the Route 12A battle zone in the dawn’s early light, despondent about capitalism and humanity. I felt as respected as cattle in a chute. Despite the bargains, I felt like a sucker.
This year, Black Friday fever started on Thanksgiving Day, when members of my extended family pulled out newspaper fliers to discuss strategies and opportunities. One niece was ready to shop all night.
Even my wife Dede, who is a shopper, but not an early morning shopper, got into the spirit. Comforters and quilts priced at $29.99 put her over the edge, but she was willing to go only so far. None of that 4 a.m. stuff. “If you’re up at 6, wake me up,’’ she said.
And so I did. “Would you drive me to the store?’’ she asked. ‘Umm, OK,’’ I answered.
So there I was in a rather large mostly-clothing chain store that has sales so often no one knows what the real prices are. I would like to say that we charged directly to the back of the store like a running back who would not be denied, but it was more like the end of that famous college football game when the Stanford Marching Band came out onto the field too early and the gridiron was a mad maze of tailbacks and tubas.
Nevertheless, we found the comforters and quilts, with the aid of a store employee who actually helped. We bought a couple of each, allegedly saving hundreds, a calculation that seems suspect. I did not feel any richer than when I came in.
We stood in the checkout line for about an hour, chatting with a sunny young woman who laughed at every funny remark, and a cheery couple in front of her who’d been to other stores already. Dede kept checking to see if I was getting grouchy, but I never did. The fact is, I didn’t care whether we got our specials or not, which made all the difference. I was in a perfect state of non-attachment.
We drove home, looking forward to the inevitable Black Friday nap. I knew it would be priceless, and it was.
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.