The yuletide season may have been over last week for most people, but for our special group of musicians-friends, it only ended last night. They finally managed to find time to meet up and have that belated Christmas party. I am sure other groups and gangs, or what-have-you, might have done the same thing had they also been caught up in the hectic schedules of December. But for this bunch, last month had been full of engagements that made it difficult to find a common day for meeting up and celebrating. In the end, season or not, a reunion, where other close friends of the band, was finally done, and as always, any opportunity to reunite is a recharged-fun time for us, normal hoomans.
And as with any yule party, its heart lies in the exchanging of gifts (or Kris kringle, Christkindl, secret Santa, and Manito-manita by any other name). The child in everyone is unabashedly out on this one, aside from it naturally bringing out the holiday spirit in everyone. A new variation of this was in play at the party, and it involved opening what you’ve got, choosing what you wanted, and outsmarting any one else who wanted the same thing. In the mid of all the fun and laughter that came as a result, amid the frantic and hilariously-funny contesting for the desired items, I slowly came to realize that the exercise had brought on new significance in the end, because every person in the room was the gift.
Friends are funny people. They come in at all points in one’s life, and if one cared to remember, from the time a person learned to walk, one of the first necessities to get through to the world was friend’s helping hand. Like in any high school science experiment, what if we tried employing the first rule, which is observation, on the friends that we have amassed through the years? Why? Simple enough, we need to realize that despite differences in opinion among some friends, or long absences among others, there were specific moments shared with each one, and recollection of these make them special people, ergo gifts.
