Well, there are only a hand full of days left until folks all over these fruited plains celebrate Christmas. And, I am feeling kinda’ good about it, because I am almost finished shopping for presents!
In my reckoning, if I wait until the end, shelves will be picked almost clean of items to purchase, thus making my buying decisions easier. (Remember, even at Christmas, it’s really only about me.)

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Got this e-mail last week: “Don: I enjoy reading your column, and I got tickled when you listed the things that need to be deleted from TV, but you forgot one — the movie, A Christmas Story is chock full of things PC Police find objectionable: It stereotypes women as stay-at-home moms and criminals as clumsy buffoons. It glorifies guns. It depicts bullying. It condones violence as a way to resolve conflict. It depicts child abuse (overtly the soap scene and covertly the friend whose mother is heard hitting him, then shows up at school with bruises). In all seriousness, I think it’s a delightful movie that is on my must watch list, at least once on Christmas Day! Have a Merry Christmas — Janet D.”
Thanks, Janet. I love that movie, too (even if it has the tired, old stereotype that men/dads are smackin’ frackin’ baboons).

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Still love the following editorial from the Sept. 21, 1897 New York Sun. I love the prose, the topic — everything . . .

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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I smile every time I read that!

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To you who are sad, alone and just not “feeling it,” this holiday season, I wish you peace. I offer you love. Figuratively or literally, I give you my hand to hold. If you need, I will tenderly, gently and with compassion wipe away your tears. Your pain is yours alone, I know. Know though, you are not alone . . .
. . . Oh, and if you want, I just saw some cool things on-line you can ingest to make your poop sparkle and glitter . . . and if glittery, sparkly poop doesn’t make you smile, let me know I will come up with some other sort of bathroom humor that might do the trick.
I will be thinking of you this holiday, I promise.

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Miracles we seek are all ready inside us; given to us because we were born; shared with us by anyone who ever loved us.
This Christmas give your love, share the miracle of you and open the gifts which were freely given to you in love. Merry Christmas and peace be with you.
DontRushDon@gmail.com

  Christmas, don rush, don’t rush me