I'm really trying...

...to work up some kind of holiday cheer. I'm telling the truth, so help me, Bing Crosby.

That explains a few of the recent posts. I keep thinking if I just go along passing along the cheer, it'll somehow work a little magic on me.

Nope.

Even played some Christmas music. But that has the opposite effect from what's desired. Diana Krall may sing as if the only thing missing from her seasonal happiness is having me there with her, but she -- like a couple of those women who have expressed such sentiments to me more directly in the past -- is only in it for the money, or to please an audience to which I do not belong.

I've heard all the ads, too. Sorry, advertisers; not buying anyone a Lexus. Nor will I be stopping in at the big downtown jewelery center to stock up on diamonds. Cripes, I haven't even got anyone around who'd be delighted by a gift from Home Depot.

And if I did, couldn't afford such nonsense anyway.

Doing the "Santa" act is what Christmas is all about for me, anyway. Not necessarily big gifts, because sometimes the hippest things to lay on people are the small, thoughtful things you've spent hours choosing.

Believe it or not, if I could be Santa this year, no one I know would get lumps of coal in their stockings. At most, I would try to give one or two people the gift of thoughtfulness, since it's clear such a thing in in short supply in their lives. Nothing painful, you know. Just an awareness that they have contributed to my own Dark Christmas, which they did not need to do.

In one instance, I might "gift" someone with painful, debilitating loneliness, just the same as mine. But, knowing me, I'd take it back fairly quickly. No one deserves that.

I know, all too well, that the "real" Santa won't stop by here until his goodie bag is well and truly emptied. In fact, I suspect he'll sneak through the window -- no chimney here -- just to take a long pull from my bottle of Jim Beam before he heads the reindeer back to the stable.

It's been like that for longer than I care to admit.

I do want to cheer up. In fact, I have something planned for this evening that might help me fill this journal with happy ho-ho-ho stuff through the 25th.

There are so many people who well and truly deserve a hefty dose of Christmas joy, and I want to kick a little into the mix if I can.

This can be the cruelest time of year, as I know too well.

But if I can do anything about it, it won't be so for others....