Letting my friend, Slim Randles take center stage today. His point about the cold doesn’t make sense here in Texas, as we’re currently experiencing a warm spell. It’s going to be 75 degrees on Monday, and folks who want a fire that evening will have to run their AC to compensate. 🙂
I hope everyone has been having a great holiday season so far. I had a wonderful time with some of my family on Christmas Day – good company and good food – and I even managed to watch two Christmas movies: My two favorites. “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Die Hard.”
Rather disparate in storylines, I know, but even after having seen them both numerous times, the endings never fail to bring a smile and make me misty-eyed.
That’s what a good Christmas movie does – brings happiness and a warm heart.
And speaking of bringing smiles and warming hearts, that’s how readers have reacted to my two holiday short stories. Check them out: The Last Dollar and The Gift. “A lovely short story of patience, kindness and love. What better could come from a Christmas story?” Amazon reviewer.
And now here’s Slim. Enjoy his essay that also warms one’s heart… and our toes.
It’s natural to mumble nasty things about the cold weather. We all do it from time to time. But even the cold has its merits.
One big plus is that it makes fireplaces a reasonable addition to our lives. In cold weather, we can build a fire in our home with a clear conscience. This is something that doesn’t translate well to summer heat, but when it’s cold, here comes the fire.
Strange, isn’t it, our love affair with a fireplace? Makes absolutely no sense. Today, we can make houses so impervious to cold that every time we light a candle, the temperature goes up ten degrees. So what do we do? We cut a hole in this sealed anti-cold unit so we can sit and look at the flames, the way our ancestors have done since they learned to walk upright and invented kindling.
But we don’t care. We’ll spend a lot of extra money to buy a house with a fireplace, and not think a thing about it. Because this fireplace is the spiritual center of a home, as it’s always been. It’s the gathering place. It’s the place to read, to learn, to meet and tell stories. It’s the core of our universe. The fireplace – and those waiting for us there – is what we dream about when we’re miles from home in the woods or desert. It warms us, inside and out, cooks our food, and answers our questions.
Questions? Sure.
When the fire’s burning low, and you can just see the little blue lickem flames curling around the glowing embers late at night, and when we’ve about talked out the day’s adventures, we can look at those embers and find answers to questions we didn’t even know we had. And we feel sorry for people who don’t have these advantages.
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A Note from Slim: Please consider buying A Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right. Good advice from an aging cowboy … me. Available on Amazon.com, among others..
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That’s all for today, folks. I do hope your weekend is a fun one. I’ll have company on Sunday so tomorrow will be spent on preparations. Be safe. Be happy.
BTW, what are your favorite holiday movies? Please share in the comments.