Back in 1944, while teaching music in public school, Donald Gardner asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas. Noticing how almost all his students answered him with a lisp because they had at least one front tooth missing, Gardner sat down and wrote the song, “All I Want for Christmas is My …
“What part of Christmas do you find most stressful?” I asked my secretary the other day. “The shopping,” she said, without hesitating. “The shopping,” those two words just about cover it all. The traffic—trying to find a parking place, struggling to drive from one store to the next— and the crowds, rushing to get in …
Read more “Finding Common Ground at the Manger this Christmas”
“You’d better get what’s left of your garden in; we’re going to have a hard freeze tonight,” Glen, my gardening mentor, warned me several weeks ago. And so I carried in the tomato vines, picked the peppers, and salvaged what okra was left. In the garage, they are now ripening so fast that some are …
I’ll take the night before Thanksgiving over Christmas Eve any year. Christmas Eve is a tired ol’day, worn out by the flurry of activity preceding it, and by the time it arrives, usually too soon, it’s all out of breath as it plops its burden of stress and strain—last minute shopping, checklists, nagging questions (Did …
When I first heard the news of Joe Paterno’s failure to do more to protect the kids in the case of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged crime, my first thought was, “Say it ain’t so, Joe”—the line the little boy supposedly spoke to baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson as he walked down the steps of the courthouse …