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THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS FOREVER

(With all due apologies to Charles Dickens)

It is especially noticeable around this time of the year. We do not know exactly when it started. Its advent has been slow, imperceptive, steady, insistent, annoying, frustrating, and ultimately familiar and commonplace. We know the purpose of its existence – that is obvious – but we resent being the ones having to bear the burden of its effectiveness.

We have become inured. We know, now, that it is a part of our own existence. and that we must accept it. That reduces not one whit the frustration, however but we put up with it because there is no alternative. We can complain, scream, shout, throw things and cuss a lot, but we know that we are stuck with it for the foreseeable future. We know not to whom one should appeal or where one should direct a complaint. Even if we did, we know it would all come to naught. There is no agency or person who could bring a halt to such an incessant intrusion. It defies geography, politics and national boundaries.

Instinctively, we have determined that our only hope of survival is choosing the proper weapon against this unstoppable invasion. There are no weapons specifically developed effectively to perform this task. There are, of coursed, default instruments that may be adapted for this purpose. Naturally, they never are at hand when needed. We hurriedly must seek them out at wits’ end of dealing with this maddening intruder. And, when we do come across an available weapon, the battle is furious, destructive and often bloody – on our part only – the enemy is of another species and leaks not life fluids. When the battle is over, our nerves are a-frazzle, but the enemy is defeated and moribund, if not completely dead.

We weep not at the demise of this heartless monster. Conversely, we are elated with its arrival, because generally its presence portends the delivery of something pleasing to us. Perhaps that is why, despite its annoyance, frustration, and sometimes danger to our person, quickly we put out of our minds the ugliness of the encounter and focus upon the fruits resulting from the battle, rather than on the necessary but unwelcome – however, ultimately vincible – enemy.

* * *

What is this mysterious invasion?

Impenetrable modern packaging, of course!