by James Glaser
December 27, 2002

Are you supposed to feel that way? Is everyone as happy as I am that Christmas has come and gone? Sure it is fun and yes, I did eat way too much again, but did we do much in the way of Christmas.

Christmas, like the real thing, giving and helping others. It seems that there was more of that when I was a kid, but maybe that was because I was a kid back then. I remember my dad helping old winos and he did give to the Salvation Army, not just change in the bucket, but a check and a load of food. He always told me that the people at the Army did everything you were supposed to do for Christmas, only they did it all year long.

All the stores are having their "after Christmas sale," like they didn't get every last dollar out of you before Jesus' Birthday, remember that is what Christmas is. Christmas is a Religious holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. They should have a few signs up reminding people why they get that day off and those parades are not just to get you downtown to shop, no it is a celebration.

Back to those stores and the "after" sales. You might have received a check from Aunt Martha instead of a present. Well those store owners know that check is theirs if they can entice you in the door and if they don't dump all this stuff left over from the pre-Christmas sale, they will have to store it till next year. In America, next year never comes for a lot of last years stuff, so if you don't buy it a lot of it gets dumped. No they don't give that perfectly good stuff to the poor, they destroy it. That is the American Way.

How many millions of boxes and tons of wrapping paper have to be dumped? How many American made presents did you buy this year? That gets harder every year. It has pretty much become Art or Crafts if you want American made. It sure will be a shame when America gets to the point that we don't know how to make any thing any more.

Well let us look at the bright side, it is total blue sky today, the grand children and my kids are coming up today. My son, Garrett and I will be cutting out a bed for him in the workshop. In theory he will be able to take all the pieces home and assemble a fine bed with storage drawers under it.

Here is my Question for the week. Have you ever noticed that you have to keep buying more hangers every couple of months and that way more things come in the door than leave? Charmaine tells me that with all of this new stuff we will have less area to heat, each item becomes a heat sink, and it will save us money in the long run. Women are so smart.