Buy Some Chicken for a Stranger This Christmas 

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It doesn't matter if one celebrates in the traditional Christian manner, that of a non-Christian faith or as non-believer, Christmas is a day on the calendar that we can all claim as being one of shared memories. Few people claim a societal affection for June 18, for example. But mention Christmas Day, and we all have a special recollection.

One of my most memorable Christmas Days was that of being a blackjack dealer in Nevada. It was the first time I became aware of the notion that not everyone celebrates Christmas the same way.

You'd be surprised what casino folk think about Christmas Day gamblers. It's the day dealers can mock and degrade their guests for sins similar to their own. Such disdain for their guests occurs outside casinos, too, but we call those miscreants legislators.

Luckily, most of my Christmas Days were spent at home, where our family would awaken as early as possible to see what new game or toy Santa left for us under our tree. Our trees were sometimes from a tree lot, but as often as not were those chopped from a copse of pine up in the Oquirrh Mountains, then dragged for miles, only to be chopped some more in order to fit beneath our living room's low ceiling.

On some years, we set up a monstrosity of an artificial tree—probably first spotted in Grand Central—that was basically a broomstick with some silver shiny things hanging off of it that tapered in length, bottom to top, to give it a triangular shape and the misperception that it was tree-like. It looked like a tree in the same manner I look like Brad Pitt.

And ho-ho-ho, in the familiar tradition of old St. Nick, a spinning plastic wheel of light was projected onto it. Nothing evokes the Christmas spirit quite like a red, blue and then fake-green-silver Christmas tree.

Still, each Christmas, we kids would all race to put the damned thing together. That's the way it is with kids. We didn't really care if it were real or not. Santa didn't seem to mind, and for sure, he was real. If we set it up, gifts will come. We set it up and Santa came.

Funny thing is, I don't remember ever taking it down. I just remember that each year the box that held the fake tree gained a little more bulge to the point it eventually had to be bound with duct tape, a consequence of bad fake-tree-branch stacking on the part of my younger siblings, who were never as careful as myself with items of fakery.

It was convenient for us that my grandparents lived about 50 feet from our home. With two families claiming the adjacency rules of Christmas engagement, it was a given that all of our relatives had to come our way on Christmas Day (actually, every holiday for that matter, but especially on Christmas).

Between our two homes, all manners of cousins, aunts and uncles—even great aunts and great uncles—would be gathered together at some point. The first gathering was in the living room to open and admire new gifts, like cheap cologne for Grandpa or yarn for Grandma. Then we'd gather outside to break—or lose—our newest toys. I still don't know where the roller-skate key went, and I've still never been on roller skates.

Our gathering was at the dinner table, where we'd be astonished at all the food we all had on our plates. And marvel at it we did, since our holiday meals were actually feasts back then, something that visually lent merit to the notion of being grateful for something.

It occurs to me that on any given day, at any café in town, my lunches and dinners overflow with more food than we ever had on a major holiday . Remember when your breakfast of bacon, eggs, potatoes and toast all came on one plate, and that you could still see the plate? If we doled out food in the same ratios today as back then, we'd all be eating off of plates of the size of radial tires.

Like most families that drink wine or whiskey with dinner, after our ancient Christmas Day meal, the men folk would gather in a smoky back room for a round of poker. I was too young to play, so I was given the job of emptying the ashtray. Crappy job, trust me.

Still, I feel sorry for any bug-eyed boy or big-eyed girl who missed out on the excitement of watching stacks of nickels, dimes and quarters splashing down on a rickety card table. I don't think there was ever more than $10 or $20 total at stake, but to kids who pocketed every found penny, it seemed like Daddy Warbucks had entered the building.

This year, there probably will be no poker game. And if there is, it will be played with poker chips, not nickels and dimes. It's just not the same.

The turkey and ham will possibly come from a local take-out, not from mama's oven. The potato salad won't taste the same because whoever makes it at the local supermarket doesn't use the same brand of pickle that dear old auntie did. Everything's changed. We claim to be grateful, but there's no context in getting there.

Look, when you purchase your bucket of chicken this year, do something nice: Buy two and give one to that person on the street corner. And give them last year's coat.

Christmas Day may be just a day, but it's the one day we actually think about doing good for more than two minutes. So do it.

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.