InsaneJournal

WHO: Sinéad and OPEN
WHAT: Thoughts of Christmas
WHEN: Tuesday morning
WHERE: Looking about the little shops downtown
WARNINGS: TBD
STATUS: Open/Ongoing


Sinéad pulled her coat tightly around her as she made her way along the sidewalk. Main Street was decorated beautifully this time of year; wreaths and lights hung around the iron lampposts, and on the historic two-story buildings that lined the street. It looked a bit like Cork, in a way, enough to make her a bit homesick for someplace that really only existed in her thoughts. Home wasn't like that any more. There wasn't any peace to be found there, not in the middle of the civil war that was destined to be worse than anything the British had done to them.

She sighed, looking into a window that sold - apparently - winter apparel. It was pretty, well made, and terribly expensive - at least to her early twentieth century sensibilities. Everything was expensive here, and while she was starting to adjust, sticker shock wasn't likely to leave her any time soon.

She'd loved Christmas as a little girl. She'd loved the tree, and the dinner, and being around family. The music, the special masses. There hadn't been much money for presents, but that had always been okay. Mícheál had been there, full of jokes and energy, and Damien and Teddy had usually come over in the afternoon with a fruit cake from their mother. She'd watched the three of them play their game of hurling, in later years always wondering why she couldn't play too. It had never seemed exactly fair to her.

But those memories...they didn't fit with what she saw around her. Here, in 21st century America, it seemed that Christmas was all about presents. It was all about money, and buying things, and sending gifts...it seemed that the true meaning - whether you clung to the religious one or the one that just meant being around family - had been lost in commercialism. Capitalism at its worst, taking over a holiday that really had nothing to do with gifts. Why did they give gifts at Christmas at all? Was it because the wise men had given them to the baby Jesus? Well, most of them weren't anything resembling wise men, so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to her.

"You've all lost the point," she said softly to the next window, filled with all manner of expensive little trinkets. "This isn't what it's supposed to be about."