At some point this side of the Hamilton mountain, I broke the silence and said, "That Grinch movie was really odd."
Linda dragged herself out of her own thoughts. "What do you mean?"
"Well the essence of it is a complaint about the commercialization of Christmas. But with most complaints I've heard about that, they say we're forgetting the true meaning of Christmas, which is Christ's birth. But in this movie I didn't see any mention at all of anything having to do with Christianity or Jesus. Not a word or image."
"Right. I didn't see any either."
"So if you take away commercializion and you have no religion to replace it with, what do you have left?"
We sat there looking at the light from our headlights on the pavement trying to think of something.
"Nostalgia," I said. "I guess the only thing you have left is nostalgia."
Linda mulled that over and then said, "After a few years of only nostalgia, there wouldn't be anything to be nostalgic for, so there would be nothing."
I laughed. Okay, then there had to be something we were missing.
"Oh, it's a family reunion," I said.
"Yeah. Like a wedding."
"Or a funeral. But every year."
With some relief, we sank back into the Christmas songs on the radio and our thoughts.