Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA

Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA

The Japanese bombed here again and again. In one particularly big bombing, a large number of Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA hid in an air raid shelter, and the number of people who entered exceeded the design standard, so the officials locked the door according to the regulations. A tragedy happened because the air was exhausted. No one can describe the horrible scene inside – countless people climbing outside, countless people being trampled to death, people climbing on the corpses, many people’s brains being crushed, blood and crying promptly filling the air raid shelter. In the end, the official death toll was 9985, but no one in the area believed it. Those who have witnessed the tragedy estimate that at least tens of thousands of people have died in despair.

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Mail is still delivered and collected here in the U.K. on Christmas Eve, and I believe the same is true for the U.S. also. Although I know that this is not the Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA in some countries, Christmas Eve is a normal working day in the U.K. and again I believe that the same is true for the U.S. also (though may people do finish work early on Christmas Eve). The question reminded me of how the mail delivered to my house on two different Christmas Eves illustrated how Christmas is not just a time of goodwill when you receive cards and presents in the post, but also a time when life goes on as usual and you can still receive the most unwelcome and unpleasant items of mail as I did on those two occasions. And here I kid you not, believe me, because twice in my life I have received a court summons on Christmas Eve !

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30 years ago, I owned some furniture stores. It was just before Christmas and a young woman came into the store I was at that night to pick up a Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA top desk that she had purchased on layaway. She made weekly payments towards this purchase and was proud and excited that she was able to buy this desk for her husband’s Christmas present. It seemed apparent that it was a real financial stretch for her to have afforded this. She had come to the store with a pickup truck, and we helped load the desk into the truck bed. With a merry Christmas and smiles all around, she left for home. Half an hour later, the woman came back to the store in tears. She had struck a pot hole in the highway and the desk was launched out of the truck and smashed to the ground. Fortunately no one was behind her, and a passerby helped get the desk back into the truck. Sobbing, she pleaded whether we could do anything to fix the desk. Clearly, though, it was irreparable. She was so distraught, there was clearly only one thing to do. We loaded another desk into her truck and I told her that it was my Christmas gift to her. She was so excited and thankful, and I think it really was a gift to myself. I felt really good about that!

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Writing from faraway Australia I have to glumly report that our 2 most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, as well as Canberra and its surrounds, are in hard lockdown and state and Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA irrespective of their political leanings, are taking no chance. There was a slight relaxation of public event restrictions towards the end of the 2020 pandemic – schools reopening, some theatres, concerts and sports events with limited seating – but no major festivals. Since then there has been the emergence of the even more virulent Delta strain – with no indication as to what even worse variants round the corner – and we are in total blackout conditions again – the wartime parallel will not be lost on you – or on me as an ex-Pom. So far the total death toll has not yet exceeded 1000, or only recently – in stark contrast to the daily death toll of 1000’s which you have been experiencing for weeks on end – and the population of the UK is only just over double that of Oz -but any resumption of “normal” life is just not on the horizon. In the historic past people rode out plagues, prayed to the God of their ancestors, and locked their doors until the pestilence blew over. In our time such death rates, and the yet-to-be-assessed degree of debilitation among those who survive -are just not acceptable. Much as I and my fellow-musicians, and others in a whole range of professions, are devastated by present realities, we have to accept that any wholesale re-opening of business-as-usual is not worth the risk.

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Early pictures of the British Father Christmas (who became assimilated with the Christian Santa Claus) show him wearing a long hooded cloak, just like the Yoan Moncada_ Sugar Skull Shirt + Hoodie, Chicago MLBPA god Odin. And he rode trough the sky on horseback – just like Odin rode through the world on his eight legged horse Sleipnir: In Britain, the word ‘Yule’ had been replaced by ‘Christmas’ by the eleventh century, although in some regions ‘Yule’ survived as the normal term. Many present-day customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar and others may have connections to older pagan Yule traditions: Hauling a Yule log in 1832. This sneaky one-eyed guy certainly isn’t the Christian Saint Nicholas … Due to the process of Christianisation the twelve day period of Yule gradually lost its pagan roots, and became known as ‘Christmastide’. But whatever tradition you follow – be it Paganism, Wicca, Christianity or nothing at all – here’s wishing you a wonderful mid-winter festival!