Columns

This week’s storm put some snow on the ground for a white Christmas. The heavy winds made travel harder, keeping families together as we reached Dec. 25.

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Critics on their social media soapboxes have spent the past month loudly proclaiming that Christmas is too commercial. The nub of their complaint is that the true meaning of Christmas is lost amid the buying frenzy that marks the holiday. They claim the essence of Christmas lies not in gifts, decorations and festive eating and drinking, but in non-material things, such as celebrating the birth of Christ, reconnecting with family and friends or spreading peace and “goodwill” toward others.

We don’t fight our wars to win anymore. We fight them to get to a stalemate.

My mother used to say she dreaded the day she returned to school after Christmas vacation. The standing assignment in that small country school was to write about their holiday and the gifts they received.

There is so much to appreciate during the Christmas season. And, like many of you, I’m certain, much of that appreciation revolves around the memories of Christmas mornings. Each Christmas which I’m blessed to experience I always think back on one of my earliest Christmas mornings, the one when Santa was indeed in the house.

Some people hold true to the time-honored tradition of making New Year’s resolutions. Typical topics include exercise, diet and financial health. Getting our legal affairs in order is a resolution worthy of serious consideration.

COLUMBUS — The General Assembly’s marathon Dec. 14-15 session, which ended close to dawn, may or may not be one for the record books for the greatest volume of hot air ever exhaled in a confined space.

As Christmas approaches, many Americans are unfortunately feeling major stress about the holidays, and some may even be in an Ebenezer Scrooge “Bah! Humbug!” mood as inflation is putting a tight clasp on many people’s budgets.

A month ago, COP 27 (the 2022 U.N. Climate Change Conference) had its last session. What did it accomplish? A fund was set up for rich countries to pay for climate-related disasters in poorer nations. But the basic answer to the question of what COP 27 accomplished, now as in previous years, is still this: not much.