What does it say about me that the lyrics that catch my attention from the background music while writing, are these from Miles’s Davis’s Blue Xmas?  I guess maybe the cynical bitch narrator of my Evelyn A. Archer alter ego isn’t all fake after all.

Blue Christmas (To Whom It May Concern)

Merry Christmas
I hope you have a white one, but for me it’s blue

Blue Christmas, that’s the way you see it when you’re feeling blue
Blue Xmas, when you’re blue at Christmastime
you see right through,
All the waste, all the sham, all the haste
and plain old bad taste

Sidewalk Santy Clauses are much, much, much too thin
They’re wearing fancy rented costumes, false beards and big fat phony grins
And nearly everybody’s standing round holding out their empty hand or tin cup
Gimme gimme gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme
Fill my stocking up
All the way up
It’s a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy
Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the fal-de-ral
Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all
What I call
Fal-de-ral
Bitter gall…….Fal-de-ral

Lots of hungry, homeless children in your own backyards
While you’re very, very busy addressing
Twenty zillion Christmas cards
Now, Yuletide is the season to receive and oh, to give and ahh, to share
But all you December do-gooders rush around and rant and rave and loudly blare
Merry Christmas
I hope yours is a bright one, but for me it bleeds

After my nostalgic look back on my youth and wondering if maybe my generation missed an opportunity somehow, my niece posted on Facebook about a significant moment in her Challenge Day experience. I’d never heard of it so looked up what she was talking about on the Challenge Day website.  What I read gives me renewed hope that whether or not my generation missed the mark or not, maybe the next generation is still on the right path.

You’re beautiful for sure, Chevelle.  You go, girl!

The Challenge Day mission is to provide youth and their communities with experiential programs that demonstrate the possibility of love and connection through the celebration of diversity, truth, and full expression.

Challenge Day – Challenging You to Be the Change.