A Bit of a Break, Sort of

Apparently the Amber & Neely's holiday challenge does not include weekends, because there are no topics posted for Saturday or Sunday, so I'm on my own to think about what to write.

Oh the pressure!

Today I wrote Christmas cards. Lots and lots and lots of Christmas cards. Christmas cards to people I don't know and who will know me only as "Bev."

The Red Cross runs a Holiday Mail for Heroes program that I only heard of this year, though this is apparently the 5th year it has run. This is the information, should you be interested:

Starting this fall and throughout the holiday season, the Red Cross is working with Pitney Bowes, a mail stream technology company, to collect and distribute holiday cards to American service members, veterans and their families in the United States and around the world.

The process is very simple and takes no time at all - All you need is a pen and piece of paper to share your appreciation for the sacrifices members of the U.S. Armed Forces make to protect our freedoms The Holiday Mail for Heroes mail box is open and ready to receive for your cards. Please send all mail to:

Holiday Mail For Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Sending a “touch of home” to American men and women who serve our country is the perfect way to express your appreciation and support during the holiday season.

Ya gotta be quick though, because mail must be postmarked by December 9. I have a big flat rate envelope ready to go out on Monday, using up a lot of cards that I have had around here, unsent, for years. They are perfectly good, but I just don't send that many Christmas cards through the mail any more. I was happy to see this program and to know that I could both get rid of the cards and maybe bring a tiny bit of happiness to someone else.

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Tonight we saw our second-to-last Christmas show. We started with Fruitcakes two weeks ago, moved on to White Christmas last week, and tonight was Every Christmas Story Ever Told. Tomorrow we will be seeing A Christmas Carol.

I have to admit that tonight's is my favorite. It's very funny, very clever, very well-written, and has three incredible actors doing it. I don't laugh as much as I did the first time I saw it because...well, it is the fourth time I've reviewed it.

As we sat down a man saw me reading from my Kindle before the show started. He asked me how I liked it, mentioning that his wife has the new Kindle Fire. I was telling him about the Kindle and the iTouch and why I wouldn't get a Kindle Fire (since it has only an 8 hr battery life). But the whole time I was answering his question, he was checking his e-mail on his iPhone and laughing at things he was reading. He occasionally looked up and apologized, but he didn't put the damn phone down.

I see that happening more and more often, people trying to carry on a live conversation, but unable to put down their electronic devices and responding more to the devices than to the person sitting in front of us. We are going to reach a point where we will be incapable of face-to-face interactions at all.

In back of me were women who were chatting, first about Tiger Woods, and then about equity actors. But the two topics seemed to be intertwined so much that I began to wonder if Tiger Woods is doing little theater in his spare time and perhaps that is affecting his golf game.

The women sang with the guys on stage, talked audibly throughout the first act about what was going on on stage and then one of them started kicking the back of my seat. Over and over and over again.

At intermission they were talking more about theatrical productions they had attended and congratulating themselves on being such suave, professional theater goers. It took all my willpower NOT to turn around and tell them what I thought about them, and how totally unprofessional and downright rude their behavior was.

But--holly in my heart 'n' all, I decided to be charitable in deference to the season of good will toward men...and in this case women.