December 29, 2025

The days grew shorter, Christmas rushed in. The lights in the trees along Main Street twinkled brightly, set off by the night sky to create a mystical charm, the anticipation of joy. Still the holiday season seemed a bit off.

We did our best. A week ago the air at Paris Mountain State Park was chilly. Four friends wore gloves and thermals. North Lake reflected the high sun against the surrounding hills. We trekked along the lake, then paused. A few hikers and dogwalkers passed. The forest was mostly quiet, which is why we go. We talked about another outing on a trail near Pretty Place, the Blue Ridge mountain lookout at Camp Greenville. But the Christmas mood was bittersweet.

We broke into pairs and slogged a steep trail that winds up four or five switchbacks. From the summit another quarter-mile leads to the ruins of an old fire tower, built in 1938 and abandoned just a few years later. We stared at the site then moved down the trail and turned onto a one-mile spur.

In the woods or the city, the poetry and mystery of Christmas lifts us. Downtown, coffee drinkers reflected on their lives at Spill the Beans. A toy store, O.P. Taylor’s, was full of determined shoppers. It was the same at Mast General, where you can find almost anything having to do with the outdoors. A sign reads, “No dogs in the candy aisle.” People were buying sale items. I didn’t see the big-ticket jackets and sweaters moving.

Traditions don’t die, even at this ambiguous Christmas. We all did our best to create thrills. Parents searched the malls and the internet to stage the perfect Christmas morning. Strangers are giving to charities and local food pantries. We know about the need, which is everywhere. Standard&Poor’s reports that business bankruptcies reached a 15-year high in 2025. Many Americans, those without 401Ks, those thrown out of work, don’t feel the promised economic golden age.

Others closer to our lives are caught in the intense complexities of human connections, victims of conflicts of the heart. They were not far from mind days before Christmas.

We strung a few lights on the shrubs, fewer than last year. Michael sent us rare plants, we’ll try to make them last. A friend sent a solar-powered mobile that will light the yard. We taped up cards with photos of smiling kids.

We did the important things. On Christmas Eve the church was packed when we arrived nearly an hour early for the 3:00 PM Mass. The Methodist Church next door also was having an afternoon service. The 1:00 PM service at Fellowship Greenville, a megachurch a few miles away just ended, traffic piled up. Christmas is getting earlier.                                                                 A young girl sang the traditional hymns in lovely tones, lifting the congregation of regulars and the twice-a-year Catholics.  Everyone was in good spirits, appreciating the music, the prayers, the brief homily by the young priest who smiled and yelled “Merry Christmas.” Still, it was Christmas Eve, folks left early. The triumphant recessional, “Joy to the World,” was handled by a near-skeleton crew. On Christmas morning Christ-child statues appeared to complete the nativity creches set up on church lawns.

We remind ourselves that we share faith for a reason, it may lead to peace, serenity, whatever they mean. Then there are the children’s smiles and bright eyes.

We thought hard about grandsons’ gifts that would make a lasting impression, longer than a couple of minutes. I like to think of them turning pages, so we tried books. The boys dived into the gift stack early in the perennial morning ritual. They set aside The Call of the Wild and Adventures of Sherlock Homes, but will get to them shortly, I’m sure.

It goes on everywhere on Christmas morning, or nearly everywhere. Others are having different experiences, less festive, more complicated.

The mercury reached the high seventies. The warm spell hung on through Christmas afternoon, we got out and walked. The young woman across the street waved from her garage. It had been a while. She overcame family conflict, established herself in this town, built a promising career. We thought about other strong, resilient people confronting tragedy and hardship. Another friend copes with her mother’s dementia. Sheer courage lifts her, she perseveres, honoring God in service.

We kept walking. A young guy jogged alongside us, breaking from his run. “Training on Christmas Day?” I asked. “The Cooper River 10K, March 28th,” he said with a grin. “Over the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston.” I said I missed him at the Thanksgiving 8K, he disappeared out front with the leaders. “At 31 minutes you were one of the leaders.”

He’s four decades behind me, an electrician on the 4:00 PM to midnight shift at the Inland Port north of Greer. He and his wife have two small girls. “She used to be an occupational therapist, right now she’s a full-time homemaker,” he said. Those girls no doubt got what they asked for from Santa. It was a cheering thought, young folks pushing forward. He raced off.

Christmas will linger as long as we reach for the magic of grace for those around us. The kids are out of school, the hikers are on the trails, the Hyatt is showing off its collection of trees. Folks are taking pictures of the big one in from of the M. Judson bookstore.

Elsewhere, freezing rain and snow are falling, reinforcing winter. Soon temperatures here will plummet again. Meanwhile, at Christmas we count the strong people around us, young and not young. They are present in our lives, living with courage, moving forward, creating happiness for children and old folks, bearing glad tidings for all.

December 22, 2025

We trooped into the exercise room, a lady asked our names and checked us off. It was time for the annual Seniors Christmas Luncheon at the YMCA. The “elves” who had volunteered for the event were still removing the tin-foil lids from the bins of catered food. We took seats as Cheryl, the Active Seniors Group coordinator, announced the agenda: lunch, games, songs.

She led a short prayer: “Let’s have some blessings. Lord knows we all need some blessings in our lives right now.”

We had shown up the past couple of years at this gathering of old folks in old folks’ Christmas sweaters. I spotted a couple of people I had seen last year but attendance was definitely down. Two years ago the tables had filled the basketball court, a band played carols and Fifties tunes. Last year we were in this same far smaller exercise room, maybe a dozen tables, no band. Someone said the band director had passed away.

Sandy had mentioned she signed us up for this but I forgot and grabbed my usual sandwich at home. We drove over. I wasn’t very hungry when we went through the buffet line of smoked turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, mac ‘n cheese. Afterward, dessert: pumpkin pie, cakes, lots of cookies.

Others looked forward to it. They shuffled along, watching as the servers heaped food on their plastic plates, then headed for the pie table. It was Christmas lunch, after all.

The group is mostly women in their seventies and eighties, a couple are close to breaking ninety. The ladies know each other from the water aerobics classes or other Y-sponsored programs. They’ve become friends, talk on the phone, go out to lunch.

A few folks critiqued the food, some liking, others disliking the smoked turkey. The conversations leaned into health news, aches and pains, appointments, surgeries, plans for surgeries. Some news of deaths. One of the half-dozen men, Neal, sitting next to me, reported on his family’s ancestral farm in New York State. No one lives there permanently, but he and his wife Bonnie will be heading up there in a couple of months.

As lunch progressed Cheryl called us to attention, saying we could get second helpings. A few folks headed back to the food. Then she explained the game, twenty Christmas trivia questions. We tried to remember the name of the Grinch’s dog (Max); the three gifts brought by the Magi (gold, frankincense, myrrh); the state that produces that most Christmas trees (Oregon); and an old staple, the all-time favorite Christmas tune (White Christmas).

Our table got 10 of the twenty, another group won with 14 correct answers. They got to pick from the door prizes, which looked mostly like Christmas table centerpieces. Our actual centerpieces were provided by Neal and Bonnie. Cheryl warned us not to walk off with them, which sometimes happens at these things.

Neal headed to the front of the room and called for 12 volunteers to represent the 12 days of Christmas for the song. He gave each a sign printed with the gift for each day. Cheryl handed out lyrics, and we launched into off-key, unaccompanied singing. At each “day of Christmas” the volunteer with the sign for the day held it up. We all applauded. The volunteers got a chance to pick from the remaining door prizes.

We did a couple of others, but attention was wandering. It was nearly 3:00 PM. Cheryl invited the young YMCA staff people in to get lunch. To the rest of us she yelled, “Plenty of dessert left, grab some cookies!” I thanked Cheryl. We offered each other “Merry Christmas,” and headed for the door.

These things are going on all over, old folks are gathering for seniors lunches and sing-a-longs. Some are looking forward to Christmas with children and grandkids. Others are alone, coping with health problems in nursing homes and assisted living spaces.  For them, Christmas is hard time. The Y lunch is a big deal.

We’re working hard at getting in the spirit. Last weekend we took in a stirring classical concert at a nearby Presbyterian church and a happy blast of Christmas tunes by the city brass band. Music may get you to Christmas cheer.

Days later, the mercury fell into the teens. It warmed to the thirties, but the wind was gusting. Downtown, on Main Street, a dozen or so demonstrators waved signs in the weak late-morning sunlight. Some of them sang “This Land is Your Land,” the old Woody Guthrie folk song from the 1940s rerecorded by Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and others in the Sixties.

Their signs ranged from “Tax the Rich, Feed the Poor,” and “Democracy Dies in Silence” to “Hands Off Our Democracy” and “One Very Angry Veteran,” among others.

Christmas shoppers hurried by. The demonstrators, in overcoats, hats, and gloves, shivered and stamped their feet. Their voices rang out in the cold air, carrying heartfelt feelings.

Some of them were young, a few as old as our Seniors Luncheon crowd. A few kept singing “This Land.” It’s on a different wavelength from “Jingle Bells.” In its own way the old song, in the clear tones of that shivering little group, celebrated something good and positive, perhaps bringing hope to believers, and maybe those blessings we all prayed for. Merry Christmas!

December 15, 2025

The young hematologist, Dr. Concetta, greeted us with a smile at the Cancer Institute. It had been six months since Sandy’s last appointment, but the doctor didn’t waste time on small talk. She waved an eight-page report, then sat and leaned forward to explain it.

“Hemoglobin, platelets, creatine look good. Kappa light chain reading is down. Kidneys look great. You’re doing great,” she said.

She talked about other things in the report, columns of terms and figures you would need a medical degree to decipher. We understood this was good news. We relaxed and chatted about the Vietnam trip next month, about the scramble to get the right vaccinations. “Sounds wonderful,” the doc said. We exchanged Merry Christmases and got out of there. Another medical escape.

All this started more than a year ago when a urologist sent her for blood testing. Kidneys are complicated things. They don’t like excessive protein, which may be produced in the body by processes that require a specialty in urology to understand. It can lead to an obscure condition—obscure to us—called “monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance,” or MGUS, the “undetermined” being key.

MGUS Kappa light chain is a risk condition for multiple myeloma, or blood cancer, which has no cure. It’s a low risk for most folks, we learn, but who’s the “most” and who’s not? Like lots of potential conditions for old folks, no one really knows. What you do know is that the possibility will keep you awake at night.

We were lucky. All this started with a friendly nurse practitioner who ordered some tests and referred us to a urologist. Referrals grind along slowly for urologists, after all, most old folks need to see them. In my kidney cancer days of 2019, the waiting room always was packed with seniors, friendly and chatting or silent, eyes closed. No one minded waiting, all felt lucky to have an appointment.

Sandy’s specialist wanted more tests. Blood test results, after all, are a critical indicator of lots of things. She is not one for being jabbed. Months later we got to the Cancer Institute and hematology with Dr. Concetta. She looked at the tests, ordered more, and set an appointment in three months. Meanwhile we googled Kappa light chain and MGUS.

We did what we could in the way of healthy living. Sandy gave up drinking diet soda, a lifelong habit. We ate more fresh vegetables and salads and cut back on meat. We quit the pork loin we used to grill using what seemed like a healthy recipe in The Fat Chance Cookbook. We ate grilled salmon and veggie burgers. We switched from sugary yogurt to plain.

She kept up her water aerobics classes at the YMCA and went to the gym.

All this is the conventional wisdom, the things you’re supposed to do, young or old. The hard part is finding whether it has any effect on the mysterious chemical composition of your blood and the progression of MGUS-Kappa light chain.

The doc gave us a copy of the report. The first page looked good, I guessed, the figures in the column of new results was lower for types of protein, by a fraction, than six months ago. The following pages were a barrage of abbreviations and acronyms. I recognized “Basic Metabolic Panel” from my own parade of blood tests: sodium, potassium, chloride, CO2, BUN, calcium, creatine, glucose. Most old folks, and some younger ones, would recognize them.

 The report offered more cryptic numbers, but we took our cues from the doctor’s cheerful mood. Whatever the report says, you’re okay if she’s smiling. The doctor’s expression tells you what shape you’re really in.

Cancer and its precursor conditions are everywhere. After the appointment we talked to our son Michael, a medical physicist and director of resident physicists at Cooper Hospital in New Jersey,  part of the M.D. Anderson Medical Group. He explained the use of statistical calculations to analyze the treatment of 1,000 cancer patients. One thousand patients? One hospital?

Our local Cancer Institute is a compact two-story building. Usually a dozen folks are waiting for appointments. Getting a seat is never a problem. But that’s a dozen when I’m there for an hour. Others are waiting when I leave, and that’s five days a week. There’s another cancer institute nearby in the suburbs, and satellite offices all over the county. So a thousand patients? Easily.

M.D. Anderson, the nation’s premier cancer center, partners with seven hospitals nationwide and one in Spain. Other major cancer hospitals reach through the country. The Mayo Clinic is in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida. Sloan-Kettering is in New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey. Prisma Health has dozens of hospitals in South Carolina and Tennessee.

Those places, and many others, treat thousands and thousands of patients, who go through test after test using technologies that generate vast piles of data, to be parsed by sophisticated statistical methodologies. Medicine and computer science are integrated, blended, mulched, to spit out figures incomprehensible to the average patient (most of us). We don’t follow the briefing or stare at the paperwork. Instead we look for a smile.  

December 8, 2025

It was inevitable, as always. Christmas is a couple of weeks away, ending this year of distractions and trauma. The lights are glowing, or twinkling, up and down the street. The city parade was Saturday. The stores are busy, or some are. Thanksgiving raised spirits around here, they needed raising.

Now we are paying attention, once again entangling the celebration of the birth of Christ with the big retail season, the eternal, awkward irony. Advent started a week ago, we pulled the Advent wreath from a cupboard and lit the first candle.

We will open, again, the immortal message in the Gospel of Luke, the real Christmas celebration. Beyond that, one caveat: make it special for children. Teach them the mystery of the season, watch for the thrill in their eyes.  

So we were present when the First Baptist Church of Mauldin, S.C., was packed with parents of students of Mauldin Christian Academy for a children’s Christmas concert. What could be more traditional, more innocent, except maybe a visit by St. Nick?

Like many such places in the South, First Baptist is big enough to house an entire school, the auditorium grander in size than any Broadway theater. A giant video screen glowed with “Snowmen at Night,” the concert theme.

The youngest students performed first. One hundred kids in their red and green Christmas outfits sat below the stage. Someone, maybe the school principal, offered an impromptu prayer. The children stood and launched into song, filling the huge space with their lilting young voices. The volume overwhelmed the lyrics, but the crowd applauded, rapt with parents’ pride.

The kids moved through a litany of light-hearted children’s songs about snowmen, about the season, about the joy of Jesus’s birth. They swayed and waved their arms with music generated by an electronic sound system. For a fast number they strummed on toy guitars, for another they put on little top hats. Parents waved flashing cell phones, capturing videos.

The young singers filed off the stage, the older students came on. They offered a mellifluous litany of Christmas classics, Silent Night and the rest, their sweet, disciplined voices filling the hall. The crowd, boisterous for the younger ones, now was reverently quiet.  

Afterward we joined the scrum of kids and parents and congratulated our young friend, fifth-grader Josephine, who performed. Our spirits had risen a notch. Driving home, the holiday lights seemed a tad brighter.

Pushing forward, we joined daughter Marie, son-in-law Mike, and the grandsons for their junket to the annual gingerbread competition at Asheville’s glittering Grove Park Inn. The massive stone lobby of the place was filled with holiday visitors. Hotel guests sipped cocktails and warmed themselves by two giant fireplaces, savoring the cheerful atmosphere.

Tourists squinted at photos of the eclectic mix of politicians and celebrities who have stayed or visited, including most twentieth-century presidents. I wondered if Hoover and FDR thought about the Depression during their visits. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lawrence Welk, William Shatner, and Michael Jordan, in their times, came by.

We walked past stunning displays of gingerbread creations offered by crafters from North Carolina to California. We joined a crowd gathered on the Sunset Porch to stare at the wild palette of evening color settling sixty or more miles out in the eastern Great Smokies. The dark silhouettes of the distant peaks seemed to evoke the abiding, calming permanence of the Christmas lesson.      

The Arboretum, beautiful year-round, was decked out in brilliant lights that convey the joy of closeness to nature. We pulled wool caps over our ears against the 30F night chill, along with hundreds of others needing a fix of cold-weather cheer. The multicolor designs of local wildlife, geodesic forms, and graceful carvings of grinning trolls create a world of fantasy and mystery. The crisp night air transported us at least halfway to the season.

The fun is supposed to pick up speed in the final weeks. Our plan then was an evening out to celebrate the anniversary of the night we met in 1977 and watch the Christmas parade. Then at the parish there’s “breakfast with Santa” for the younger kids, followed by “dinner with Santa” a week later, then caroling in the streets for those who like that.

The churches and civic officials lean in earnestly. The war over hearts and minds gets intense, amid the spending forecasts for these last few weeks that make or break the year for retailers. One first-hand account was that Black Friday at the mall was a bust, with barely more than the usual crowd and the usual discounts. We like everyone else are buying stuff online.

Herculean efforts are being made to lift Christmas from the nation’s sour mood. Some of us are less affected than others, shown in the many houses decked out in thousands of flashing lights, giant inflated Santas, nativity scenes staffed by multiple apostles and angels. You now can hire a pro to install your lights, no need to climb a shaky ladder yourself.

If I get around to it I’ll save a buck and hang my own, at my typically crooked angles.

Again it’s the kids that matter. We took away something from the children’s concert, a bit of serenity, then hope, that the brightly wrapped boxes on Christmas morning won’t crowd out the eternal message of the season. It’s a hope that the kids get to church and see the infant in the manger, learn, and understand.