Same Time, Next Year
Same Time, Next Year
Although It’s Been Said, Many Times, Many Ways...
December 16, 2021
Another COVID Christmas
There is a video circulating on Twitter that shows hundreds of cars, perhaps thousands, lined up at a COVID testing site in Florida. This comes as the U.S. has just hit the 800,000 mark for COVID deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
And we realize we have not typed the word COVID in this space in nearly a year. Since just before last Christmas. That’s like going a year without speaking the word death or thinking about gravity.
COVID just is. It’s such a part of our landscape now that we, some of us, sometimes don’t even think to mention it. Or realize we’re not mentioning it.
And then there’s Santa Claus. Wearing a mask.
It’s cold at the North Pole and COVID travels faster up there. Last year, several elves were sidelined the week before Christmas with COVID. One of them died. This year, many more have gotten it but they have all been vaccinated so no one has gone down for the count.
Christmas will be better this year than last. More of us will be together, even as more of us are leaving. Santa will bring each of us a mask and a cold Coca-Cola of hope as we gather by the fire and let the warmth fall over us as the glow of the Christmas tree spells out “remember,” “reality,” and, oh yes, “many happy returns.”--TK
Thursday, December 16, 2021