“Back in our day, we kids weren’t allowed to say boo at the dinner table, just eat what you’re given and none of your nonsense. The older kids just took care of the younger ones and if we didn’t toe the line, why then–“

True, curmudgeons as a rule maintain that they don’t like computers or anything so newfangled as social media, or for that matter social anything. Don’t let them fool you. Once they discover Facebook, they latch right onto it. So much so, in fact, it makes you wonder how curmudgeons through the ages ever lived without it. Curmudgeons have complained about the young since time immemorial, but never before has it been so easy.

In some cases, the curmudgeon personality is genetic. A curmudgeon may be born, not made. Even so, the curmudgeon stance, in order to be truly effective, must be carefully developed over time. Curmudgeonhood doesn’t sit well on a young person; you have to grow into it in order to wear it well.

The holidays are a particularly difficult time for the curmudgeon, what with all the emphasis on generosity and goodwill toward man. Still, a truly committed curmudgeon will find inspiration even in the holiday season, taking exhortations to experience the “true spirit of Christmas” as a challenge.

For a start, he or she will take issue with either the word “holiday” or the word “Christmas.” And why are they playing (or not playing) “White Christmas” or “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” or Bing Crosby’s greatest holiday hits in the stores? Isn’t it a little early? The curmudgeon can then move on to complain about various aspects of gift giving, ordering online, and so on.

On any given day I can skim through my Facebook posts and annoy myself by finding and reading any one of a number of canned curmudgeon posts and their variants. While curmudgeons as a rule are not known for banding together–a true curmudgeon is, to use one of Grandma Allen’s expressions, as independent as a hog on ice–they do like to glom onto these rambling curmudgeonly texts about the good old days, and then endlessly repost them. Sometimes the authorship of these texts is erroneously ascribed to famous people, whether living or dead.

Curmudgeon posts range in tone and content from sweetly sentimental and nostalgic to bitterly vindictive. Often, those who post them vaunt their own painful childhood experience as a fine and character-building thing. On the other hand, these posts also glorify the freedom children enjoyed in years past. No curmudgeon worth his or her salt would ever use the words deprivation, abuse or neglect, unless of course while talking about animals instead of children.

“Share this if you: walked miles to and from school, in all kinds of weather, where you were beaten up by bullies and teachers and the principal, and then beaten again at home! Left your house in the morning after chopping wood and milking the cows, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah … rode your bike and played outside and only came home for dinner … ate what you were served … none of this video game, cellphone stuff …”

Naturally, curmudgeons, while complaining about younger, supposedly inferior generations, don’t mention their own teen and college years, leaving out any reference to the binge drinking and/or illicit drug use popular in their day. Oh well, to be fair, perhaps they’ve forgotten.

Admittedly, repeated treks to the mall under North Pole conditions, making a list and checking it twice, or upwards of a hundred times, while at the same time worrying about money and time constraints, can make us all sympathize with the Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge. It gets dark so early that people say, “Is it really only 5 o’clock?” And everyone has heard of the holiday blues.

This year, though, because of the dreariness of the COVID pandemic, people seem eager to embrace the holidays. Well before Thanksgiving, many of us were stringing up lights and buying presents. Even some dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeons.

“And look at us now! It didn’t hurt us any! Share if you lived to tell about it!”

Have a good week.

(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)