Christmas Rebel Not Without a Claus

I love Christmas. And I'm trying not to grind any axes or chainsaws even for a Christmas tree. I want peace on earth, good will toward all men and women. And I enjoy this seasonal fusion of all kinds of traditions and everyone, well almost everyone, at least trying to be happy and spreading some joy.

The commercialization doesn't even bother me that much. Yesterday, I was out with my wife briefly for some holiday food shopping. The big secret in Centerville is to shop at Fresh Values, the store formerly known as Albertsons. They are across Parrish Lane from WalMart and nobody goes there much anymore. They were offering samples of dips and party platters better than anything you can get on Free-Lunch Saturdays at Costco (Well, there is no such thing, of course, because you have a membership to get in at Costco, they expect you to buy at least one 25-pound bag of Cheetos or something, and it certainly costs a lot out of your life to navigate that parking lot!)

We even made a quick, strategically well planned stop at WalMart for something Fresh Values didn't have. I got close enough to the front door to drop off my wife, then hit the jackpot finding a parking spot four spaces from the door right next to the handicap spots! I parked and went into the madhouse to find her. I hung by the front registers while she made one more desperate swim against tide to grab something else she had forgotten. I just chilled and smiled at people. There was one of my bus friends I see nearly every day. I still don't know his name, but we recognized each other and smiled.

The Third Seal Opened the Market Based Economy?

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vasnetsov
Note the third rider on the black horse carrying the market scales

So, I was sitting there in Gospel Doctrine Sunday School class amazed by the teacher skimming through that lesson on Revelation Chapters 4-22, which is quite a lot to cover in forty minutes. We did have the McConkie outline explaining that it is mostly historical based on the dispensations of the Gospel and not all still to come. We read about the first four seals and the horsemen. There was a comment about the third seal representing famine and starvation because people of the world don't share the resources we have resulting in inequities. I went back and read the verses again:

Lambie Lives!

I'm off politics tonight. This one is rather personal. So, if you don't like the "touchy-feely" stuff, just skip this one.

Recently, I had a couple of people bring up the issue of my “inner child.” (Yes, Gary C, you were one of them.) So, I was doing some thinking and writing on my private blog trying to remember and record my earliest memories. One of those is of a stuffed toy lamb with a music box inside its belly named “Lambie.” He had floppy ears and was a cuddly comfort. That is about all I could remember except for some family stories about him. And I still could feel the emotion as Lambie was my first love. (Well, beyond my parents and grandparents). We were inseparable. And, yes, there was a bit of thumb sucking involved as I caressed a satiny ear with my other hand. Lambie eventually disappeared much to my inner child’s distress. So I switched to my fringed blankie.