Single: Black Crowes, ‘Back Door Santa’ – Finally, A Xmas Song I Can Get Behind

I’m probably like most people out there, 2020 has been a slow, painful slog. Despite the grim year, I looked up and suddenly it was the dreaded (for me) Holiday Season. How is it almost Christmas? It seems like just yesterday I was barricading myself in my house for the 4th of July.

I guess we all thankfully got a collective Xmas gift this year in the form of a couple of viable vaccines. I was watching the local news last night and they did a story on a group of a dozen rescue dogs. They’d all been found in the house of a hoarder down in Tulsa and transferred to Kansas City because the Tulsa animal shelters are full. Not to get off track here, but if you’ve got charitable dollars to give, don’t forget your local animal shelters or the Humane Society.

Anyway, these poor dogs who had been owned by this hoarder had never been outside. They’d never seen the sky or the sun. One can only imagine what the hoarder’s house smelled like. They showed the dogs being led by leash off the back of a truck and into the KC shelter. The dogs were looking up in fear at the sky they’d never seen. They were agitated and disoriented and perhaps a little agoraphobic.

I couldn’t help but think I’ll look pretty similar to those dogs when I’m led out of this attic I’ve been hiding in for most of 2020. I can almost see myself being led by the arm by the Rock Chick – to keep me steady – while I stagger down the front porch steps, staring nervously at the sky…”What is that large burning orb hovering above the tree line?” “Well sir, it’s called the sun.” 

I’ve documented on these pages my, uh, “lack of enthusiasm” for the Christmas season (Confessions of an Ex-Grinch: My Christmas Epiphany). Anymore, and especially this year, it feels like a season I’ll have to endure rather than enjoy. I don’t know what turned me into such a ghoul about Christmas. I really like to give gifts. I like to make people happy, which may be a surprise to, well, people.

My parents and my grandparents (God rest their souls) always put on a great Xmas. When we were little kids we’d wake up and come bursting down to the living room and it was nothing short of gleeful. And yet, here I am. As I got older it became more and more awkward for me to actually accept a gift. I never feel like I can express gratitude properly. It’s an odd thing to be hung up on.

The Rock Chick says she knows when I don’t really appreciate a gift, but can she? I’m not sure I can even tell. Naturally, me marrying the Rock Chick was like the Grinch marrying Mrs. Claus. Every Christmas is a production Cecil B. DeMille would envy, which I’ve grown to enjoy. Admittedly, the strong egg nog helps… I guess I was just out there on my own, playing like a “Desperado” like the Eagles song for too long…”you’ve been out ridin’ fences for so long now.” 

Editor’s Note: I’ve been going back over some of my older posts and for reasons unclear, they’ve been truncated and only the first few paragraphs are included. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. More so, I’m bummed I’ve lost something I wrote.