I don’t know about you but Christmas Eve seems to be coming a lot faster than when I was a kid. Back then it seemed that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve was an eternity. Now it seems that once Labor Day comes Christmas Eve is right around the corner. I know that getting older warps your perception of time but it really is getting out of control as far as I’m concerned.

But I guess time going faster does have its benefits. For one thing, it must mean that you are having fun.  It is a proven fact, after all, that bad times or at the least, unpleasant times, never seem to end fast enough. Whether it was waiting for the three o’clock bell to ring when you were in grammar school or the whine of the dentist’s drill as it was burrowing into your jaw to sound its last painful chord, you just couldn’t wait for the clock to fast forward you out of the chair and on your way. But as I have gotten older, I realize that what my Mother used to say when I was back on Leland Avenue in the Bronx, “Don’t be wishing your life away”, was sage advice.

Cherish the slowness of time’s passage. Enjoy the moment. Live in the moment. Christmas Eve is here again so you should drag your feet just a little to keep the New Year in its place. It wont be long until we’ll be struggling with using 2014 instead of 2013. (I don’t know about you but I still haven’t given up on using “19” and we are more than a decade into the new century!)

Now, as to making the season bright, here are my suggestions:

Mix up your Christmas music a bit. Don’t play the same old songs or sing the same old carols.

Watch something else besides White Christmas and A Christmas Story.

Read Bleak House in lieu of A Christmas Carol.

Have a milk shake instead of egg nog. By all means don’t have any whiskey!

While the above recipe for celebrating Christmas Eve may, in fact, make it last longer, it certainly will not make it worthy of remembrance. So, do as you have always done and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas…and a little Jameson while you’re at it.