Kevin LaRose

Category: holidays

  • Holiday Classics Revisited

    Every year at this time, it has become more or less of a tradition for me to read Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and watch the movie It’s a Wonderful
    Life at least once. They have become an integral part of the season for me. Over the past few years, however, and especially this year, it seems to me
    that the negative protagonists in these stories, Ebeneezer Scrooge and Mr. Potter, could be mainstream individuals in this day and age, and might even
    be praised by some.

    Charles Dickens makes no secret of how Scrooge is viewed in A Christmas Carol. He goes to great length to paint Scrooge as, to say the least, not a nice
    guy at all. In fact, it’s safe to say he’s universally reviled, and for good reason. And yet, I can’t help but wonder how Scrooge would come across in
    this day and age. I’ve seen modern-day individuals who act very similar to him get glowing write-ups in Business Week and Fortune and get glowing profile
    treatment on CNBC and FoxNews. Much of what he did is now considered simply “good business”. I could very easily see him lauded as someone who “single-mindedly
    sticks to the business model”. Scrooge’s attitude toward the poor, exemplified in his encounter with the men who came into his counting house soliciting
    for charity, is sadly indicative of the attitude of many today toward the poor. And, so far as I know, Marley’s ghost is very scarce these days.

    Much of what I said regarding Scrooge could also be said about Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. Less than ten minutes into the film, Henry F. Potter
    is labeled as “the richest and meanest man in the county”, and he subsequently proves the point throughout the film. Yet, if the same movie were made today
    by some, Potter would be the right-thinking man of business, and George Bailey would no doubt be portrayed as a pie-eyed idealist who doesn’t understand
    the real America and is probably a Socialist besides. In the last scene of the movie, where the whole town is gathered joyously in the Bailey’s living
    room, I could see Mr. Potter bursting in and saying “hey, what about that $8,000?”

    I don’t know if overall perception has shifted that much, or if I’m way off base. I suppose both could be true. Whatever the case, I’m going to continue
    with my tradition and enjoy the book and movies in the true Christmas spirit. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

  • And Now For Something Completely Different

    I haven’t had much to say as of late. It isn’t that I haven’t been tempted; it’s that I’ve been tempted in the wrong ways. There are so many words being put out there by so many, and the best I can say is there isn’t anything I can add at the moment that would be the least bit productive. So, with that in mind, I’m switching gears and sharing with you all one of my first Christmas memories.

    A hospital is really not the best place in the world to spend Christmas. This is about a million times more true if you happen to be four years old. This is the rather dismal state of affairs I found myself in. It had been a tough year for me all around, to say the least. Among other things, I had my left eye enucleated due to a staph infection, and this and other issues kept me at Stanford University Hospital pretty much nonstop for a lot of that year. Things were not as enlightened then as they are now where hospital stays for children were concerned. Visiting hours were strictly enforced, which meant that many nights were very hard for me. Mercifully, I don’t retain many conscious memories of that time. But I do remember Christmas morning, for the right reasons.

    I woke up that morning to the sound of wheels on the linoleum floor. This was a sound I was all too familiar with—but this time, it wasn’t the food tray or a medical cart pushed by someone about to give me yet another one of those infernal shots. Accompanying the wheels were the voices of my mom and dad, my sister, and my cousin who was living with us at the time. They had rolled in a red wagon full of my presents. All these years later, I couldn’t tell you what a single one of those presents were—except the wagon, of course. I suspect I was the same, bratty four-year-old I always was. Hey, give me a break, remember where I was! What I do remember, these 2 score and 7 years on, is the sound of the wheels on the floor, and the voices of my family, which meant I wasn’t alone. I think it’s important to remember that many times the best Christmas memories have nothing to do with the awesome gifts one gets. Sometimes it’s all about the experiences that don’t actually cost anything.