Sorry that I have not checked in sooner, and even sorrier for your loss.

Trusted confidants who can hold up the mirror and make one really examine oneself are hard to find--and, as you know, the trust component doesn't begin instantaneously.  

You wrote this at Christmas, and here I am, finally reading this right after the close of the longer Nativity cycle which ends on February 9.  Your angst about what passes for Christmas is well placed, and I think that British poet laureate Sir John Betjeman offered the ultimate summation:

And is it true? and is it true?
The most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me? 

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
he sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant. 

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -T
hat God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.
 

The Exchange is on life support.

Occasionally a Dr. Kevorkian shows up to do some phishing "need top contact administrator--it's important" always from a Eastern bloc domain.  So I ban and scrub.

Tarnation wrote:

The Exchange is on life support.

Occasionally a Dr. Kevorkian shows up to do some phishing "need top contact administrator--it's important" always from a Eastern bloc domain.  So I ban and scrub.

I've been busy too.  So many ads.