It is time for turkeys, trees and the terror of shopping oh my! No, I have not turned into the Grinch, a miser, or a lonely Charles Dickens character, I just wish the retail world would stop selling Christmas as if it was an out of date can of soup! I happen to love Christmas carols but I don’t want to hear them at Easter, on Spring Break or celebrating the Fourth of July! I subscribe to the adage there is a time for all things and all things in good time. People fascinate me. We are at the same time in a hurry to get where we are going yet trying to apply the brakes to stop time before we reach the finish line. I would aver that makes us an enigma wrapped in a dichotomy covered with an oxymoron! In other words, we are a bit of a mess! When we are kids we cannot wait to grow up and when we are grown up we lament we are not still kids and try to grab back those things of our youth. Some people use their children to live out missed opportunities and others just refuse to grow into their adult skin. I always think about people who I know that even as adults would be put on Santa’s naughty list. I am sure you are smiling because you know many people too who would qualify. I told Harold the other day it has become a sad world when I hate a Toys R Us commercial and this year I do. What happened to the fun, childlike whimsy and magic that being a Toys R Us kid was all about? Their recent commercial has two children dressed in business attire depicting some sort of news presentation and is just irritating. There is no joy and no warmth and it makes me sad! When did Christmas become so commercial it lost all meaning and hope to those who are trying to sell it? Did we give permission for its sale? Was there a contract signed? Sometimes I wonder if I am just out of the loop on things and living in the past on this one. Is it that I am stuck in those Christmas days of my past when the season didn’t start until after Thanksgiving and people gathered their hearts to celebrate making the world sparkle with magic for a time? I grew up in a town much like San Saba and I can almost smell cookies baking in the houses, see the lights welcoming guests into the warmth of homes filled with laughter, friends and excited children. I can hear the voices of the Acapella choir singing by the huge Christmas tree at our local bank and my younger sister, Carol, squeezing my hand because after there would be huge Santa shaped cookies and fudge brownies to eat! For me, those are things of Christmas.I understand the world must make money in order to survive but I wonder if we are starving our hearts so severely of the things that matter we are becoming lopsided and upside down in our thinking? It seems we run the risk of forgetting about what really matters and who really matters. I have no desire to rush anything in my life. I savor my moments and turn them over in my mind and heart like one does a found shell on the beach. I hold them in my hand and look at how the water has washed over them to form their shape. I turn them to look for striations and patterns. If they are closed, I open them because one never knows what may lie inside. People go in search for pearls but my thought is life itself is your pearl and is the most valuable of all things. I love you all with all my heart. I will wish you a Happy Thanksgiving …it is not too soon to do that. I will not be rushing anywhere…I hold precious all my moments with you!