Tomorrow my brother will turn 52. He worked for Immigration and Naturalization for over 26 years and had been Port Supervisor in Mission, Texas for 10 years.
I left home for college at the age of 16 and my brother was only six. I don't have years of living with him behind me, I only have what I remember and what I don't want to remember. Within some people evil exits. I didn't used to believe that. But I do now. It's insidious how it lurks and you have no clue it's there. Behind closed doors things happen. Thing you really can't believe until they smack you in the face and life changes because of those things.
Five years ago my brother killed his wife. He lost it and shot her. It has affected me to the point that I could not face it, or him. I have not communicated much with him. I guess I should feel guilty about it, but I don't. I haven't a lot to say. Oh by the way, how's life? Hmmm. The impact on our family has devastated everyone. Personally I am ashamed and embarrassed about it. Well I was.
Until I realized how little it really has to do with me. How could a person do it? Pull the trigger of a gun and shoot someone, point blank, five times? It was my mother's, mother related comment that finally freed me. She said, "he's innocent."
The shock still makes me cringe when I think about it. So I thanked her. I thanked her for not making me the favorite. I thanked her for showing favoritism to some of us and not at all to others. I thanked my father for not loving me like they love my brother. They created a person who doesn't get it. And thank God it has nothing to do with me.
I thank God for not giving me what I thought I wanted. Not being the favorite child was the best thing you have ever done for me. Though I didn't know it at the time.
So tomorrow is my little brothers birthday. I will probably never see him again. And I only feel sorry for the family of his dead wife. Two children had not one, but both parents, murdered by a mate who lost it.
The purpose of this blog is to make you think. Get help if you need it and he knew he needed it. But he didn't get that help. Don't think that escape is the way to handle your problems. Alcohol is a temporary escape. Look at your life and be grateful for those people you have in your life that get it.
Life is about being with others, loving and caring for others. Get help if you need it!!! The rest is all cream...

In spite of being transplanted to faraway places, I still consider myself a Southerner, and I still celebrate Southern Christmas customs wherever I may be. I’d like to talk about three special Southern customs observed during Christmas. One appears in my family alone; the others used to be carried out throughout the state.

Back in the Olden Days when there were many children and little money, each child would get a pair of shoes for Christmas. Generally, these had to last until summer, at which time, bare feet were the stated fashion. Then, come fall and with colder weather, another pair of shoes were in order. The shoe box was saved and placed on the hearth before the fireplace where Santa, dear old chap, would remove the lid, fill it with small gifts, such as socks, handkerchiefs, candy, metal cars, and perhaps a small doll, replace the lid and go on his merry way. Naughty children got a box filled with coal. If I’d been alive back then, I’m certain I would have amassed enough coal to keep myself warm for many winters but—Lucky me!—I wasn’t born until decades later when this custom had going out of style because people were making more money and buying their kids Ataris and Transformers and ponies.

The other custom dates back to before the War of Northern Aggression and now exists only in any family which has an older Southerner in its midst: Shouting the Christmas Gift. This consists of seeing who can get to the Christmas tree first on Christmas morning—without being seen. It was more fun, of course, when the bedrooms were upstairs and everyone had to creep—ever so quietly—down the stairs, trying not to wake everyone else. Generally, they all caught up to each other on the landing at the same time. The first one to yell “Christmas Gift!’ thus beating everyone else to the punch, got to open his gifts first while all the others impatiently waited their turns. My family no longer practices this custom, although when phone calls are made, instead of “Hello” we answer with “Christmas Gift!” because who else would be calling on Christmas Morn but another family member?

The third custom is one that, as far as I know, only my family observed. Every Christmas morning, my father would get up before everyone else and disappear into the kitchen where, for the next twenty minutes, he would work as hard as a pastry chef on concocting an egg nog for Mother. Made with real whipping cream, real eggs, and a healthy slug of Jack Daniels whiskey. No cinnamon or nutmeg, please! Pouring it into a wine glass, he’d cut a slice of fruit cake, place both on a tray and carry it to the bedroom where he would offer it to Mother who was just waking. Once she ate the fruitcake and drank nog, she would get out of bed and it was officially Christmas Day. Then and only then, could we open our gifts.

I get nostalgic thinking of these customs, and perhaps a little sad that they are no longer around.

However, there's something that rates high on my list during Yuletide and that is my birthday, so when you raise those glasses in a Christmas toast, think of me and all the people who share December 27 as a birthday, and toast us, also!

Toni V. Sweeney
Linda Nightingale
Rudy Jackson
Eva LaRue
Oscar Levant
Sydney Greenstreet
Gerard Depardieu
Bill GoldbergJohannes Kepler
Louis Pasteur
Marlene Dietrich
Maryam d'Abo
Tovah Feldshuh
Heather O'Rourke
Cokie Roberts
Chyna

Happy Birthday to us all!