Pat’s Bits and Pieces: It’s Christmas!

Well almost…
The big day is Saturday (tomorrow!) and believe it or not, I am actually ready this year. All of the presents are bought, wrapped and under the tree ready for the annual “free for all.”
My annual batches of goodies are made and given, or ready to be given to the family.
We will be celebrating on December 26th at Terry and Lisa’s this year. We are excited to have so many of the family together after a couple of very “lean years” due to (guess what) COVID.
At work this year, we will be putting the paper together on Thursday as usual and delivery is scheduled for Christmas Eve – tomorrow! Hopefully it will be back from the printer and on its way to your door Friday morning as usual.
2021 is winding to a close. Just one week after Christmas, we will be celebrating another new year. I’m not sure where all my time has gone. Summer was just a few weeks ago and Thanksgiving was just the other day…
Now it is Christmas. Isn’t it interesting how much we hurry, and scurry, just to celebrate one certain holiday in the year? I have many times compared it to getting married. You plan and work and spend for months and then it is all over in one brief day of celebration.
With everything we have to do before the holiday is finally here – shopping, decorating, baking goodies, wrapping and sending out cards – it is easy to lose sight of the most important thing of all – why we celebrate this particular holiday in the first place.
Two-thousand and twenty-one years ago, in a little obscure town in the Middle East, a baby was born in humble surroundings. He grew up, lived a very short life and in the process gave the Christians in this world a very special gift – a longing for justice, peace, love and a reason for living.
He ministered for just three years and in that brief time taught patience, faith and hope to millions through his totally unselfish existence. Is it any wonder that we still celebrate that wonderful birth more than two centuries later and strive to emulate just a little of what he taught?
I think it is truly wonderful and amazing that we still celebrate his unselfishness by doing what he did – giving.
We give to loved ones, to friends and even to those we do not even know, all in his name.
What we give is gifts, but isn’t it really a little of ourselves and a little love too?
An example? People from all over are sending in funds for our Christmas Wish program at the newspaper. From there we distribute to those in need, that might not otherwise have a very good Christmas at all.
So many people are using their Christmas spirit to help others.
Another? A few years ago, we lost a really great lady right in Clare who spent almost all of her spare time providing shelter, clothing, furniture and other needed things to those who, in this struggling economy, really need the help. And, she even found toys for the kids too! She is gone now, but we are still finding out about all of the wonderful things she quietly did, all year round, to help others.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by all of the bad things that we hear about every day and there are certainly a lot of them in the news. But remember there are multitudes of generous people out there, and many right in our own area who spend their lives trying to make someone else’s a little better.
This holiday season, for a little while, forget your own worries, remember how much we have to be thankful for and share some of it with others. Pray for peace throughout the world, for comfort for our absent ones, a little bit of “home” for our soldiers away from home, and finally for their safe return.
Send them all your love with gifts, words from home and maybe just the understanding they are remembered and missed.
Remember those that can’t be with you for the traditional Christmas celebration with a special call or visit. Share your holiday, even just a small part of it with someone less fortunate and you will truly be honoring that long ago birth.
Truly that is the REAL “spirit of Christmas.”