DOOR NUMBER TWO

November 29, 2010

You may not be old enough to remember an old television show where the contestants had a choice of the prizes hidden behind a couple of doors. Not like the lady and the tiger story where one was likely to kill you, but one prize was always much more substantial than the others - the difference between a refrigerator and a car for example. Pretty big stuff if you were called randomly from the studio audience!

We just celebrated the second biggest holiday in this country (my opinion, you may consider the 4th of July a bigger holiday than Thanksgiving). Thanksgiving is a very special holiday because it is really Aour@ holiday, the people=s day. Folks celebrate it in a variety of ways depending on where they live and how the weather holds up, but a lot of families get today and made a big event. We laugh about Aturkey day@ but at 29 cents a pound turkey is a very reasonable main dish for anyone=s menu. That’s certainly a reason to be thankful.

The community we live in is an over-fifty-five place with a great number of folks being very much over fifty-five. That can be a problem because the older we get the less we eat, and for just a couple a turkey is too much to be practical. The community here solved that by doing a pot-luck dinner. Everyone brings a dish and the turkey, dressing, coffee and soft drinks are furnished by the residences association. There was lots of good food and even take-out for those who were unable to show up. Trav helped carve the turkeys and we both helped serve dinner. Then we came home, just literally across the street, and cooked our own roast chicken dinner. (A turkey is too much for us as well.) It was a nice dinner and folks had a very nice time.

There is also a community buffet on Christmas Day, I don=t know the details on that yet, but it makes sense to provide a nice meal and make the day special especially for those who do not have family in the region. Christmas has become pretty much a holiday for kids and the older folks seem to be left out. I=m not complaining mind you, Trav and I are fine, but I do look around and see a lot of folks who don=t have anyone and I wonder what their lives consist of.

I know we have people across the country that are in need of employment, better employment, or more employment. We have had a couple of tough years. I am an optimist and truly believe things will get better quite soon, hopefully by the beginning of the new year we will see some real improvement. That of course will be good for everyone and once the ball starts rolling again the country as a whole will begin to get back on track.

In the meantime, we have the other big holiday coming up and maybe we can=t do a lot, but I believe we can all help a little. There are several programs for sending boxes of goodies to our troops overseas; there is the Shoe Box Ministry which I mentioned recently on the Bulletin Board, a way to help children who literally have nothing. There are programs in nearly every community in this country which reach out to the hungry (Fish-Line and Community Cupboards along with Salvation Army) and even things like visiting elder care centers and singing Christmas carols. When we lived in Washington several of our neighbors got together over the Christmas holiday and just walked around the neighborhood one evening singing carols. It was fun!

Fishing season is over for most of us until spring, we can putter around with our gear, tie flies and start planning for the big adventures of the coming year. In reality we need to focus on some other important parts of our lives.

If you choose to celebrate the holiday known as Christmas then give some thought about what the holiday really means. It=s not about the gifts and who gets or gives the most, we have already received the greatest gift man will every receive - the gift of God=s son who=s redeeming grace saves us from hell.

What=s behind door number two? Eternal life.

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