yule be glad you did

Wrapping paper, food and everything eggnog. Now that the end of the year is quickly approaching the endless lists appear to close out the year, and at the end of this week, a decade. No one seems to have coined the right catch phrase for the last ten years yet. Think of what has changed since the ball dropped in Times Square and people waited for the year 2000 to cause mayhem with computers and ATMs. People horded food and money in anticipation for Y2K to cripple systems that wouldn't recognize a year that did not begin with '19.'

What did the word google mean in 2000? It certainly didn't earn a capital letter yet. 'Text' referred to words in a book and not something that could fatally damage a relationship. I and M were two letters that only appeared together with an apostrophe sandwiched between them and not yet another way to stay in constant contact with someone. Now try this. Google the word kindle and see what you get. Not the definition of a word that involves emotion but an electronic device to read without the hassle of an actual book. Advancements? Depends on who you ask.

I have a picture of a group of friends who came over for the first season finale of American Idol in May 2002. We had wine and panini and a huge tossed salad with the first bit of lettuce from the garden. There were different opinions on who we thought would win and if we could have put our younger selves through such intense scrutiny as entertainment. The picture was taken with a camera that had film that was developed at the drop-off kiosk at Costco that disappeared several years ago when I looked to develop my latest rolls and was informed by some surly woman that "everyone uses digital cameras now." I wrote on the back of the picture 'Sam, Di and me watching American Idol.' Apparently, I had the forethought to scribble 'reality tv' in parentheses because I might not remember what the genre was. Now the television listings are filled with anyone willing to let the cameras roll and capture the range of behavior for their fifteen minutes of fame. A father in Colorado led the local police to believe that his son was accidentally carried away in a balloon in the hope of recharging the family's chance at a reality show and a lovely looking woman in a sari, along with her husband, crashed a White House dinner. Why? She was being considered for 'The Real Housewives of DC.' At this rate kids are probably going to question Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny earlier in childhood because none of these characters have their own reality shows so they can't be 'real.' "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Did you catch his show last week when Mariah Carey visited him in the North Pole and let everyone know when her new album would drop?" Take a trip back through the last ten years. Think back to when the Food Network had food and MTV had music. Really.