All That Jazz - The Straight Skinny

The Straight Skinny

Season's Greetings & Good Will To All

By Carol Archer

The True Spirit of the Season

L. E. Sissman, in the Dec. 1972 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, wrote: "What I'll settle for, and what I'm really, secretly, glad I'm getting for Christmas, is, apart from the few small but welcome gifts, is a holiday season when I expect to sit around with friends and exchange some real talk – not mere small talk – instead of gifts; when they will make me feel (and them, I hope) that our friendship has worn and flexed and given for another year with a net gain in suppleness and pertinence; when – it will go without saying because there's no un-mawkish way of saying it – we all, severally and collectively, realize, sheltered and fire-warmed somewhere in a snowy, hostile landscape, that the only gift that matters is a spark of brave forth-comingness, an un-shuttering of spirit, from another person, so soon, like us, to disappear."

With this edition of The Straight Skinny, we go on hiatus until after the New Year. My new contact info will appear in the next issue. I wish you all the joy of the season and a happy, healthy and fulfilling 2010. I wish you happy holidays, and a joyous, healthy and fulfilling New Year, friends.

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The views expressed by Carol Archer do not necessarily

reflect the opinions of All That Jazz. But often they do.