Is Santa actually the Grim Reaper in drag? What is it with Christmas and death? As you may know, one of my daily activities is to carefully peruse the death notices in the newspaper. I reassure myself that people who read The Age live to a ripe old age because most of the notices are for elderly people: I do acknowledge, however, that my reasoning may be a bit suspect here.
But did you see how many death notices there are in today’s paper?? A whole page of them!! There are a few recording deaths before Christmas, but most of them are for deaths in the days immediately following. Come to think of it, my aunt died on Christmas Day, waiting to be picked up to go to church- rather a positive, engaged way to go really, although very difficult for her family. But I don’t think I’ve seen a whole page like this before! I wonder if there’s a statistical correlation between Christmas and death rates, or whether it’s a function of classified deadlines (no pun intended).
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 