December 2020 - Citizen of the Month

Hi. Ths is Neil. Not the Facebook Neil or the Instagram Neil. But the Blog Neil. I know I haven’t touched this Citizen of the Month blog in years, but I wanted to tell this story. It’s December 2020 and the world is in the middle of a pandemic. We have been warned not to travel during the holiday season so as not to spread the virus. Many of us haven’t seen our friends and family in person for almost a year. There is this thing called Zoom where we talk to our friends online, but everyone is beginning to hate it.

I was in a grouchy mood last night when I received an email from my hosting company that I need to pay again to host my blog online. “Do I really need to spend another $100 on this?” I asked myself. So, I went to my blog for the first time in ages, and I suddenly remembered that I had twelve years of the Annual Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert stored on my site. This was a virtual holiday concert that we did every year from 2006-2017. A virtual concert. It sounded so silly back then. Now everything, including our political conventions, are all done online. It’s now the norm.

And then I started to watch the videos. There are about 300+ videos of friends and acquaintances singing holiday songs, some people talented, others awful. But it didn’t matter. And a tear came to my eye. I never expected that this concert would have such meaning to me in 2020. It felt a bit like the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life, where all of Jimmy Stewart’s friends come to save his life, and he learns the true meaning of the holiday season. I’m living in my own fucking Hallmark movie! I paid my hosting fee because I can never delete this archives. Friends do matter. Even virtual ones. Thank you. I miss you.