A look back at Christmas 2008

Amidst the dire forecasts of a global economy headed for the toilet, contrasting against the heart-warming election of an African-American to the United States presidency, Christmas 2008 was a particularly hard one for some of the earliest victims of the current economic turmoil.

But there is always a way to turn anything into something positive, and so was Christmas 2008 for some of these people. MacLean’s reported on this in a very interesting article:

The recession that saved Christmas, by Ken MacQueen and Cathy Gulli

Lean times, some find, are connecting them to the real meaning of the holidays

You’d have to go back in Audrey and Owen Freeman’s lives to the Christmas of 1964 to find a time such as this—when bleak circumstances should doom the spirit of the season to wander lost in a fog of loneliness, dislocation and worry. It was their second Christmas together. They lived with their infant daughter in a bare apartment in Toronto—a city so foreign to Audrey that when she moved there from the outport of Carmanville, Nfld., she says: “If I had been going to the moon at the time, I wouldn’t have been more scared.” Owen was laid off just before Christmas. There wasn’t a spare cent once the rent was paid. They were too proud to tell their parents so they resigned themselves to a Christmas without presents, turkey or tree. “We were young and in love, I suppose,” says Audrey, “so we were willing to put up with most anything.”

Two days before Christmas, a trunk was delivered to their apartment, unannounced. Audrey’s parents had stuffed it with decorations and gifts; with candy, fruitcake and nuts; with a tiny red velvet dress and a stocking full of the things little girls love. There was a letter inside, too, and a cheque for $100, because there was no room in the trunk for a tree and dinner with all the trimmings. And so a Christmas that seemed destined to be marked with tears was instead celebrated with weepiness of the happy sort. Tears became a Freeman holiday tradition as three more children, then spouses, and then eight grandchildren joined the fold, all settling into communities near the Freeman’s home in Ajax, Ont. “If anybody walked into our place Christmas morning,” says Audrey, “they’d think we were all very sad.”

Sad? Not at all. But the biggest test of that comes this Christmas. Owen lost his job last winter after 37 years with a drugstore chain, forced into early retirement in part by illness. In all, he spent three months this year in hospital. With finances tight, the Freemans reluctantly sold their home in Ajax, and moved back to Carmanville this October. “I guess you could say we’ve come full circle,” says Audrey. “The economic downturn has affected us in that we had no choice but to move halfway across the country in order to survive on our small pension and limited savings.”

They aren’t alone in planning this year for a lean holiday season. World markets are in turmoil, retirement savings are gutted. The economy of Canada, like most of its global trading partners, is in decline. Consumer confidence, the Conference Board of Canada reported in November, fell to its lowest point since the brutal recession of 1982. And no wonder: some 71,000 Canadian jobs were lost last month, the largest drop in 25 years.

(…)

Obviously for many this will seem a diminished holiday born of fear and debt. And yet, with tough times comes an opportunity to reimagine the holiday. There are many who see this as the recession that saved Christmas, a chance to scale back the spending and search out the optimism of our inner Tiny Tims. What is Christmas, after all, but the willing suspension of disbelief? There is much that can’t be measured by leading economic indicators, or by money in the bank or the lack of it. For the Freemans, the standard for all the Christmases to come was set in the hardship of 44 years ago. “We are fortunate in that we started to cut back on spending and realize the true meaning of Christmas long before we were forced to,” says Audrey as she readies their home for the holidays.

This year, they face the prospect of a first Christmas far from their children, like many families this recessionary season who will be unable to spend as they are accustomed to on presents and travel. The Freemans are determined to make the best of it, saying it gives the children, now in their 30s and 40s, a chance to start their own traditions. Their gift-giving has never been extravagant. (…) The family will watch each other open their presents Christmas morn via a Skype computer video link; (…). The Freemans will then dine with Audrey’s cousins in Carmanville, where they will toast their good fortune and Owen’s improving health. “He’s doing really well,” Audrey says. “We’re very thankful just to have each other, and to be able to celebrate Christmas at all.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Potted plants and a little thing called NORAD

As family, friends and coworkers come home from their Christmas vacations – or, in some cases, come out of their homes from their Christmas vacations – the stories are now pouring in. This particular story was so adorable, I just had to share it.

NORAD has been tracking Santa’s progress on the night from Christmas eve to Christmas day on a specially set up website. My friend’s two sons decided to track Santa on Christmas Eve; always grabbing any opportunity to educate her children and elevate the conversation (no wonder we are friends…), she took the opportunity to teach them a little bit more about the world.

So as they watched Santa make their way through Asia, Europe and Africa (they fell asleep while Santa was crossing the Atlantic Ocean), they also checked out the pictures NORAD posted on each location as they came along. Unable to answer all her sons’ questions, she then took out her World Atlas to see exactly where each city on the NORAD map was. Still insatiable, they turned to Wikipedia to read more about each country that piqued the boys’ interest. While they covered many aspects of each country, my friend made sure that they talked about the children in each and every country; she wanted her sons to realize just how lucky they were.

So they talked about the children in Asia who were sometimes forced to work in sweatshops in terrible conditions, about the children in Eastern Europe who didn’t always have enough wood during the winter and would freeze all winter, and they talked about the children in Africa who got sick because they were hungry.

Which prompted these adorable, pure little souls to ask their mother if it was possible to ask Santa to give their gifts to the hungry kids in Africa so that they could have a happier Christmas (something about the hunger got to them more than the sweatshops and the cold, I guess). My friend, ever so wise, told them that the children in Africa would rather have money for food, and guess what – a mere week after Christmas, they have an entire fund raising project going on. The children (with, of course, the help of their mother) are making little potted plants they are going to sell to their friends, neighbours and teachers to send the money to Africa (they are still in the process of choosing an organisation).

I think these two kids, who are 6 and 9, have understood the meaning of Christmas better than most of us, haven’t they?

If you want to read more about the tracking Santa project, you can read the post here.

Obama’s Inauguration and a post-Christmas debate

I spend a lot of time during the Christmas holidays (and perhaps some time after, too) wondering where the spirituality of the celebration went, and if anyone can find it in between the presents, the turkey and the decorations.

And it seems that I am not the only one questioning the place of religion in society. As a believer, I often talk to people who don’t believe in God and/or religion to try to understand their point of view.

In recent news: on the one hand, you have a group of atheists who want to pull religion from Obama’s inauguration. According the the CBC: “A group of atheists is taking legal action in hopes of having all religious references removed from U.S. president-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony in January. A lawsuit filed in Federal Court is trying to prevent having the phrase “So help me God” included in the oath of office. It also wants to prevent inaugural prayers from being delivered at the event.

“We’re hoping to stop prayer and religious rituals at governmental functions, especially at the inauguration,” Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, told Fox News Radio. “The inauguration is not a religious event. It is a secular event of a secular country that includes all Americans, including those of us who are not Christians, including those of us who are not believers.”"

My first question is, how can anyone seriously consider the United States of America as a secular country? The US government is supposed to be by the people and for the people, right? Then why can’t Obama ask God for help in a country where 92% of the population believe in God or some form of Universal Spirit?

Obama believe in God; 92% of the people he represents believe in God or some form of Universal Spirit; if a 51% proportion of votes can win a person the presidency, then why can’t a 92% support win Obama the right to ask God for help?

And let’s be honest here… If Obama asks God for help so that he can do the job the best he can, I don’t think many atheists would object. They want the United States cleaned up as much as the rest of us do. I’m sure this is, again, just a case of a minority of people who are extremists in their point of view trying to impose themselves on others.

On less recent news, I received a forward about a commentary Ben Stein made on CBS Sunday Morning. I’m very wary of forwards, and always look up their authenticity. And this one is at least partly authentic.

Here is part of the actual statement Ben Stein made in 2005: “I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.”

Isn’t the fact that so many worship celebrities imply that we are looking for something bigger, better and inspiring to worship? And isn’t it sad that we have collectively decided to worship deeply flawed artists (Americans buy 7,5 million celebrity magazines each week) rather than God or the Universal Spirit?

The forward also included text that, although not part of Ben Stein’s commentary, is worth reflecting on: “Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.  She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.  And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.  How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school.  The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock’s son committed suicide).  We said an expert should know what he’s talking about.  And we said OK.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell  Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.”

I can understand why some people are thoroughly uncomfortable with the idea of religion; after all, so many horrible things have been done in the name of religion. But religion isn’t the only cause for horrors; just think about what materialism, consumerism and greed have done to the United States in the last couple of months. Just because there is a small number of businessmen who are incredibly greedy and will do whatever it takes to make their billions, it doesn’t mean that all businessmen are like that. The same can be applied to religious people: most of them are against the violent horrors that have been done in the name of religion. Just like business isn’t about greed, religion isn’t about violence. It’s what we choose to do with it that makes an enormous difference.

X marks the spot

I once heard someone say: “Ah,  ‘X-mas’: X marks the spot where Christ was taking out of Christmas”. How that (sadly) rings true. His Holiness Jesus Christ has taken an unfortunate back seat to the decorations, the presents and the old man in a red suit climbing down chimneys (seriously, doesn’t anyone else see how disturbing a concept that is?).

Which is sad, because Christmas is so much more than that, and not only for Christians. Like all religious festivals, Christmas gives us an opportunity to renew feelings and beliefs, to think about the purpose of life, and to thank God for all the good things we have (Source: here). Especially since the New Year is right after that – what a great way for society as a whole to rethink things over.

Many websites provide various ways to keep Christ in Christmas (here for example), but I think this is only treating the symptom of a malaise permeating all of humanity in every aspect of its day to day life: spirituality, as important to us as breathing, has taken a back seat and is choking on the exhaust fumes of a pervasive materialism.

As the old world order is sinking around us, destroyed by the greed for hunger that created it in the first place, perhaps a fitting New Year’s resolution for 2009 would be to make the effort to bring spirituality back into our day to day lives so that it, instead of greed, permeates our day to day life.

Interesting little tidbit

Canada celebrated its first coast-to-coast white Christmas since 1971 after storms battered much of the country over the last week.

Source: here.

Absolutely hilarious – clean Christmas laughs!

If you are sitting around the computer on Christmas Day looking for something everyone in the family can enjoy, look no further!

The real meaning of Christmas?

I love walking in downtown shopping areas during the days leading to Christmas. Everyone seems to be in a good mood (well, almost everyone), there are bright lights everywhere, colourful packaging with bold designs, cheerful music, delightful scents – in short, it’s like a brief period of amazing cheer and happiness.

If only the entire year could be like this, and if only the entire world could be like this.

But wait a second… It could be possible! After all, isn’t Christmas about celebrating the Birth of His Holiness Jesus Christ, who brought us a Message of love and unity?

Then again, maybe He got lost between the hot chocolate stands and the giant for sale signs, amidst the crowds of harried last minute shoppers. Who knows? The only thing that is certain is that for most people, Christmas isn’t the happy time of the year it’s supposed to be anymore.

CNN: Blog ‘miracle’ saves Christmas for hard-luck family

What a fantastic story! It will most certainly put a smile on your face and a warm feeling in your heart.

Article by Oliver Janney, published on CNN on December 25^th 2008

A family facing foreclosure is anything but a unique story in these troubled economic times.

But this is a happier story of one family whose financial ruin was averted by the actions of a friend, the compassion of strangers, the networking power of the Internet and the holiday spirit of giving.

“This is our Christmas story,” said Ebony Sampson. “It’s going to be told for generations and generations to come.”

Sampson, who lives in Aberdeen, Maryland, with her husband, Daniel, and their two young children, has overcome more hardship than one person should ever have to face. When she was in the 10th grade, she lost her entire family in a horrific car accident. Raised by a grandmother in New York, Ebony eventually used some life-insurance money from her parents’ death to buy the home in Aberdeen, near where she grew up.

But in June, Daniel got sick. After several tests, his doctors concluded that he was suffering from salmonella after eating a tainted tomato. As a new employee of Bank of America, he had not accrued enough paid time off to keep his job as a credit-card account manager.

Suddenly, the sole breadwinner in the Sampson household was out of work. Though the Sampsons received unemployment checks from the government, the money wasn’t enough to make ends meet.

First came the shut-off notices from the electric company. Then one of their cars broke down. One morning, Daniel woke up and looked out his bedroom window and saw his truck was missing. It had been repossessed.

With no job, no car and no income, the Sampsons got another surprise: Ebony Sampson learned she was eight weeks pregnant.

The Sampsons returned home from church, where they are practicing ministers, on a Sunday in November to find a stranger knocking on their front door. He wanted to put a bid in on their house. Ebony told him their home was not for sale. The next day, the Sampsons were notified that they were facing foreclosure unless they could come up with $10,000 in the next two weeks to bring their mortgage up to date.

“Once we received that letter, it was like, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ ” Daniel Sampson said. “I don’t think anyone in their right mind would receive a foreclosure notice and not be rattled by it.”

Somehow, the couple maintained their sense of humor. Ebony Sampson called one of her oldest friends, Jaki Grier, and jokingly asked her if she had $10,000. Jaki told her, “Sure, just let me open up my invisible purse!”

But then Grier got an idea.

A self-described geek, Grier started blogging years ago. Since then, she’s contributed to a magazine’s Web site and regularly posts thoughts and life happenings on her LiveJournal page. So, she published Ebony and Daniel’s story, along with a link where people could make a donation.

At the most, Jaki thought she could raise enough money to help the Sampsons pay a security deposit on an apartment after their home was auctioned.

But donations started pouring in. Within 24 hours, Grier’s blog had raised $1,000, far exceeding her expectations. People started linking to Grier’s blog from sites across the Internet and around the country.

Attorneys posted legal advice. Others in similar situations offered sympathy. One woman sent a donation with a note that said she had just lost her own home but wanted to help anyway. Another woman wrote that she didn’t have a car but would walk to her grocery store with a jar of change and donate it to the cause.

Yet another e-mail came from a woman who was unemployed, with no job prospects. She donated a dollar.

With every donation, the total raised ticked higher and higher on Grier’s blog.

“Everybody wants to give to a charity, but so many times when you give to a charity you don’t really see where your money goes,” Grier said. “At least with this, you saw the little [donations] ticker go. I think that made people excited.”

Four days after Grier’s blog post, she had raised $3,400 — enough to repair the Sampsons’ car. That night, Grier went to bed ecstatic. The next morning she checked her PayPal account and was stunned to find the balance had ballooned to $10,900.

In the time it took Grier to take the donation link down from her blog, the balance had reached $11,032. In just five days, she had raised enough money to save her friend’s home. A Baltimore TV station, WBAL, caught wind of the story and put it on the air. Someone contacted Daniel Sampson and offered him a job interview.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Daniel Sampson said. “For me, out of all the donations [we] received, it was a little kid [who] came knocking on the door early Saturday morning … with a five-dollar bill in his hand. He just came up to the door and said, ‘Here you go, mister.’ Then he just walked away. I was, like, speechless. He couldn’t have been more than 8 years old.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Sahar’s Top Ten Christmas Movies

I love Top Ten lists. They are so annoying to make, and, if you happen to work on them in a team, they are all the more nightmarish in that you have to fight sometimes quite passionately with your colleagues. Thankfully this list is mine alone. Perhaps next year, I will have some collaborators… Then again, perhaps not.

10 – Back to the Future (1985)

I know, I know, it has nothing to do with Christmas, but considering the fact that it is a classic, there are three of them and they command the attention of the kids for a good six hours, it deserves the tenth spot on this list.

9 – Die Hard (1988)

If there is one that has nothing to do with Christmas for the kids, why can’t there be one that has (loosely) something to do with Christmas for the adults?

8 – A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

Totally adorable and never boring, even after having seen it at least twice every Christmas season. I wonder why. Perhaps there are subliminal messages included in the animation? Remind me to record it this year to check…

7 – A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Of all the version of A Christmas Carol, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this is my favourite one. Perhaps it’s because I love the Muppets. Perhaps it’s because of the way they were used to make this classic ‘Muppety’ without taking away from the lessons in the story. And perhaps it’s just because I will always be a child at heart. In any case, this movie will probably be on all my future Top Ten Christmas Movies list.

6 – The Polar Express (2004)

A magical movie that makes me want to be a kid all over again, scientific to the core but still able to imagine ways magic could perhaps happen. Plus a fabulous train ride during the night in my PJs with a ton of other kids? It’s like a giant Christmas slumber party!

5 – How the Grinch stole Christmas (1966 animation and 2000 movie)

I didn’t know if I should put the two together, or separate them; the story might be the same, but the rendition is so different that watching these two back to back doesn’t seem repetitious. In the end, I had too many choices and decided to take the way out, putting the two at number five.

4 – Nightmare before Christmas (1993)

I have been mocked before, but I stand by my original assertion, made a long time ago, that this movie is adorable and very poignant, a reflection of what many of us go through, feeling like outsiders and doing whatever is possible to grab and hold on to that warm feeling typical of Christmas. This movie moved up a couple of notches this year only because it seems all the more suited to the current deteriorating situation of the world.

3 – Scrooged (1988)

I do love A Christmas Carol, but that’s not why Scrooged is on this list – it’s only because of Bill Murray. I miss him. Perhaps Santa could bring me a new production of an old school-type Bill Murray movie?

2 – Miracle on 34^th street (1947 & 1994)

Another tough choice in that both versions of this movie were adorable for their own reasons. But what makes both of them deserve the number two spot is that nice warm feeling I get every time I watch it.

1 – Home Alone (1990)

I know, how unoriginal – but this has got to be one of the best Christmas movies ever. It brings together everything related to Christmas holidays – the insanity, the family, the decorations, the gifts – and yet makes us laugh uproariously and isn’t patronizing at all. Favourite scene? The after shave.

Stuck without a gift? Here is something worth looking into…

The gift that gives twice: charity donations!

2 hens and a rooster a hot gift? Charities enjoy upswing in downturn

Many cash-crunched Canadians are tucking charity pledge cards in stockings this year, with some organizations reporting significant increases despite the economic downturn.

Donations to Yuleanthropy, a charity which funds social programs in Kenya, have doubled this year, according to spokesman Ted Grant.

“I’m really delighted and heartened by the response that we are getting from people,” he said.

Similarly, World Vision Canada also reports its Gift Catalogue — in which consumers can give gifts of livestock, medicine, and school supplies to people in developing countries — is proving to be immensely popular.

“You can buy two hens and a rooster for $55,” said spokesman Dirk Booy. “Although Canadians are tightening their belt right now, they’re not tightwads.”

CBC Toronto’s Sounds of the Season fundraising event for the Daily Bread Food Bank has exceeded previous targets, this year raising $250,000 and about 3,855 kg of food. Last year the event raised $140,000 and 3,175 kg of non-perishable items.

Read the rest of this post here.