When I was a kid, back in the ’50s, I would count the days until Christmas every year. Very exciting, to think that Christmas would come again, with its season of celebration. I could feel it! The extreme difference between the Christmas season and the rest of the year.

As a young mother, in my early 20s, the Christmas season depressed me; the memory of how wonderful it was when I was a child contrasted terribly with how I felt then, what my life had become. Depressed; and guilty, in despair: that I couldn’t offer my own kids that same seasonal joy. Every part of getting ready for Christmas, especially decorating the tree, felt like pretend. I was faking it, trying, and failing, to feel joy, for them.

Gradually, as the years passed, my seasonal depression lifted, and Christmas took its place as a likely time when the deep state would likely roll out something ghastly when we weren’t paying attention, like was done December 23, 1913

Yesterday morning, on Christmas Eve, puppy Shadow and I went for our daily 3-4 mile walk at Switchyard Park, an elongated wonderland, its trails bounded on one side with a thin layer of forest. This park is relatively new, only completed in past year or so.

Here’s the map.

Here’s a stock photo, likely last summer.

Okay, so Shadow and I were walking there early morning on Christmas Eve, remember? Supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. What did I see? Homeless encampments, all sorts of them, within the voluminous forest edges of the long, narrow park.

At one point, in one of the encampments, I saw a blond, middle-aged woman outside one of the tents, and of course, wondered who she is, what is her story? A few minutes later, she comes along behind me, pulling a cart with, I presume, her stuff. She is not obviously “dirty;” she’s wearing “presentable” clothes, but yet, somewhat, somehow disheveled, as if she had lain down for a minute in a pile of leaves, and tried, but failed, to brush them all off.

She passed me, not saying anything, even though, as usual, I looked her way and smiled. A hundred yards later on, she came across another woman, this one with a massive pit bull, and the two stopped to greet each other. They obviously belong to the same tribe.

I thought about the encampments. Each with three or four tents and messy paraphernalia. The beginnings of tiny villages. Are they demonstrating, for the rest of us, the beginnings of decentralization?

At another point, I passed a young woman, dressed all in black, with rings in her nose, otherwise very “presentable,” but she was sitting on a bench, her head cocked way back and severely twisted, looking up at something. What? There was nothing up there . .

She continued her twisted upward stare. Completely still, not moving a muscle. This went on for at least a minute as I approached. Then I saw her eyes, without her head moving a muscle, pivot to me, malevolent. Part of me was glad; she wasn’t a mannikin after all, she was real! Another part of me grew instantly fearful. But just at that moment, her head swiveled back down to normal, and I passed uneventfully.

VERY weird.

Yes, this is a very weird Christmas, especially considering all the background purgation we have been undergoing.  Bob Moran is the cartoonist who, as usual, best captures the mood.

Meanwhile, here’s an interesting post by someone who has managed to overcome his own adult depression at Christmas.

Christmas Eve 2016 was the first one I spent without my kids.

I was consumed by the deepest depression.

At midnight I climbed up onto my roof and pondered jumping.

Then a voice told me to get down and that everything would be different in the morning.

I went to bed and I woke…

— Laurence Fox (@LozzaFox) December 24, 2023