It’s Christmas, so we’re watching the last of the Christmas movies we haven’t yet watched this season. Shortly after Bonnie and I married, I declared that Christmas movies and music were only to be watched or listened to after Thanksgiving through Christmas Day. At no time between December 26th and the day after Thanksgiving shall I see or hear any Christmas-themed media. Bonnie’s mom used to listen to Christmas music year-round – she even got in trouble at work because of it. She drove her coworker nuts – so my edict was vital to the preservation of peace in the family.

So, while watching Christmas Vacation – or rather National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation as it is officially titled so I have to scroll all the way down to the “Ns” to watch it every year – Bonnie said, “And that’s where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came from,” as the sewer glowed green from Eddie’s chemical toilet.

I thought back to 1989 when the movie was released and wondered if I was aware of the turtles at that time, but I don’t think they were on my radar until the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out the following year.

A few minutes later, she commented with a tinge of disgust in her voice that Clark had made plans to install a pool without involving his wife in any way. I pointed out that just 15 years before the movie was made, women couldn’t open a bank account without a man co-signing for her. 15 years! Our kids have been alive for longer than the time between the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Christmas Vacation.

Who, in 1974 could have imagined how different the world would be in 1989, let alone 2025. It got me thinking, though, about what else I’ve seen and experienced since then that I had no idea was coming down the pike. I couldn’t have imagined, in 1989, that anyone would make a funnier Christmas movie than Christmas Vacation, but they have since.

While we were watching Home Alone, Bonnie incredulously commented on the likelihood of the family making their flight, and I reminded her that it was pre-9/11 and air travel was unimaginably easier back then. When I saw Home Alone for the first time, I never could have imagined how much the world would change in the following decade.

What “before time” are we living in right now? What’s going to happen in my lifetime that I will look back, nostalgically at 2025 and think, that was before _______________ happened. 2019 was pre_COVID, 2007 was pre-recesssion, and 2000, 1994, and 1986 all mark the years prior to major life or world changing events, but no one knew it at the time. Well, maybe some people did, but I’m not getting into conspiracy theories here.

Even though I personally feel like I’m currently in the nadir of my life, I suppose I should enjoy and appreciate this time of relative peace and calm before it becomes the next “before time” because as history has shown me time and time again, the before time can shift into the next crisis overnight and without warning. Merry Christmas!