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So this episode is late.  The Festive Fans had to attend a family celebration and a memorable party, but it was not Christmas.  It was a wedding, an event that is surprisingly similar to our favorite holiday.  They are both bright, warm, and full of promise.  I thought about this while sitting on a beach in the dark, meditating about life, in the moonlit shadow of a beautiful Chicago skyline. Also, I considered how a tuxedo was never meant to be worn in the sand.  

I sat there, half-buried in the beach, my shorts full of wet grit, staring at the horizon as the sun made its slow entrance.  I was thinking about how special times can create joy in our ordinary lives.  We crave these common rituals that bind us together, because they heighten our emotions when something special is taking place.  

Like the day after Christmas, the morning after a wedding has the same touch of melancholy.  I felt a bit sad, but also was filled with gratitude and reflection, because the wedding event was over.  In my nostalgic funk, I also began to think about tonight’s movie, Bodies at Rest.  It is from 2019, but it feels like a retro 1980s thriller.  The story begins on a stormy Christmas Eve, when an armed force takes over a public facility to help cover for one of its gang, who recently committed a crime.  Now this may sound a lot like the premise for Die Hard 2, but it is instead a Chinese action flick, filmed in Hong Kong, and directed by the same Renny Harlin.  It features bad guys wearing Santa, Elf, and Rudolph masks, and a hero pathologist with the seasonally appropriate name of Nick.

My musings brought me full circle to Hong Kong, a region that offers the same enchantment of Christmas, with how it combines tradition and modernity together. It's a place that dazzles with its brilliant glow.  Hong Kong has experienced a lot in the past 25 years when it transferred to China after 156 years of British rule. I considered all of this as I watched the sun crawl over the horizon in my disheveled outfit.  In the same way that the day after Christmas and the day after a wedding are not about endings, neither was the handover of Hong Kong.  While celebrations shine brightly for a time, the days that follow can feel empty and quiet when our memories shift from the present into the past. But, like a fragile ornament, if handled with care, the new times will endure and become stronger, lasting, and real.

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