Growing up as a kid, I thought that all grandparents–not only my own but also those of my friends–were old. After all, they had white, silver, or gray (or graying) hair, wrinkles, arthritis, and assorted aches and pains, and they couldn’t get outside and play ball or tag with me. I loved Momma Graybeal and the horehound or peppermint stick candy she kept in a crystal dish on a cabinet behind her front door. And she always let me have a piece–for a price. I had to let her hug

Snarled in stop-and-go holiday shopping traffic the other day, I complained aloud the oft-repeated refrain, “This traffic is moving along like Christmas!” Such statements, of course, refer to the perceived (especially by youngsters) slowness of recurring Christmases. But in the moments immediately following my exclamation, I had a fleeting thought and I exclaimed, “Oh, wait! That’s not true. Christmases seem to be coming more often and faster for some reason.” Could it be tha