Holidays, …or “Hollow-Days”?

What is the point of a holiday? Is it just to have a day (or a week) off from work or school? Is it just to spend time with distant relatives you never spend time with otherwise? Is it just to kick back, have fun, and watch the big game?

Or is it something more?

There’s a line in ‘Rocky‘ that illustrates this point perfectly. Rocky Balboa goes on a date with a girl he likes (Adrian), on Thanksgiving. He’s completely oblivious to that fact, though. Adrian even explicitly points out that it’s a special day, but Rocky responds, “To you, it’s Thanksgiving. To me, it’s Thursday.”

Think about that…

SC Gov. Nikki Haley gets a new gun for Christmas, …and the “tolerant” Left goes predictably insane

Our family had a wonderful Christmas together! I must have been good Santa gave me a Beretta PX4 Storm. http://t.co/QtRbyFU6CT

— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) December 26, 2013

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Merry Christmas to the Governor:

But yes, the oh-so-tolerant Left was instantaneously outraged:

The REAL Gift of Love at Christmas, …and all year ’round

Even though Christmas DAY has passed, we are still celebrating the Christmas SEASON. 

But if you were to ask a random group of people what they “love” about Christmas (the day AND the season), you’d probably get answers ranging from giving/receiving gifts, to time off from work, to spending time with family.

And while those things can certainly be gratifying, there’s no question that they are also ephemeral by their very nature:

• Your ‘shake weight‘ now resides in the back of a closet somewhere, waiting for the day when you “get around to using it…”,
• You DID go back to work, …or you will soon,
• And the family, eventually, puts away the Christmas decorations, and goes back to the daily and weekly routines.

Yet there IS one Christmas gift which never loses its beauty, and is the greatest “gift” of all time:

God’s gift of His Son.

A Christmas Poem…

“PURE WHITE”

It doesn’t matter
if the snow was falling
fierce or lazily or not at all.

The sinless Son of God
was bright enough without that pall.

Some #Christmas Funnies….

Thought we’d share some holiday-ish humor for everyone today… Hope you enjoy the following cartoons.

Merry Christmas, gang!!!
—JTR and GBL 

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“A #Christmas Hymn” for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

On this fourth Sunday of Advent, I could write something original, something of all I’ve been reading and pondering lately.

But I suspect that, three days before Christmas, you are either (A) still frantically trying to get things done, or (B) just beginning, like me, to really enjoy the season. After a week rich in blog content and variety, thanks to my brother, JTR, you don’t need anything long or weighty today.

So here, instead, is my very favorite Christmas poem of all time. (Not that it’s fluff! Far from it. But good poetry has a simple sense of inevitability which gets inside without fanfare.)  One year our family (myself, husband and both sons) memorized it to recite for gathered family on Christmas Day. I wish we’d done more things like that during Advent.

This poem has stuck with me. Although I hadn’t recited it in years, it came back to me easily when I spoke it for a friend’s grandfather at an informal Christmas concert. I invite you to take your time and read it aloud…or perhaps come back and read it on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

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This just in: The North Pole IS laying off elves…

From the “Bad News/Good News” department:

• BAD NEWS: Yes, the North Pole is laying off elves.
• GOOD NEWS: No, it has nothing to do with Green Peace’s creepy Santa Claus video.

Unfortunately for us, the culprit is much closer to home:

Christmas Trees are Doomed!!! Climate Alarmism 101 — A Massive Failure

A wonderful post from one of our oldest blogging buddies, “Donna Quixote“……

Quixotes Last Stand

I stumbled across this article posted on the website Grist — a decidedly pro-climate alarmism site.  All of the problems that I have ever run across connected with the Chicken Little Syndrome exhibited by these people can be found in this one article.  This little story is so poorly written, it would get a massive F in any journalism course.

It’s worth a read just to demonstrate how to evaluate these hysteria-driven articles in one easy lesson.  It’s titled  “Climate change will ruin Christmas by threatening Christmas trees“ by Sarah Laskow.

It starts off with the usual fear-mongering ominous sounding “It will take six to 10 years, but Christmas is ruined.”  Doesn’t this sound remarkably similar to the equally horrifying headlines from a couple of years ago stating that children in the UK will never know what snow is.  We all know how that turned…

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