I'm talking about Black Friday, of course; this orgy of greed that follows the one day out the year we're supposed to stop and give thanks for all the good things we've experienced.  Each year, it seems to get worse, with stores opening earlier and earlier, forcing employees to leave their families on one of the few days set aside to spend with family. If that's not bad enough, violence always seems to break out while people prepare to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.  It doesn't make sense.  But, every year, the store’s are filled with shoppers buying crap that they don’t need and really can’t afford.  Sadly, we pass our greed on to our children.  Don't think so?  One Christmas afternoon, when my nephew was about 2 or 3, his father (my brother) wanted to look at one of his toys.  This normally sweet, good-natured kid pulled all the things he’d gotten that day into a pile, lay on it and yelled “MINE, MINE, MINE!!!”  Contrast that story with one my grandmother used to tell about her favorite Christmas memory.  Grandma was born in 1905 in Volunteer, a little community in the foothills of the North Carolina mountains.  She lived on a small tobacco farm and like most mountain farm families in those days, money was scarce.  Since there really weren't government assistance programs, any help that folks got came from church groups and private citizens.  The Christmas I’m talking about, one of those groups got together and gathered some resources so the children in the poor families would get something for Christmas.  Grandma and her brothers and sisters didn’t know all that.  What they knew was, not long after dark, they heard sleigh bells coming up the road to their house.  Then, after the bells stopped, they heard a hearty “Ho, Ho, Ho” and, when Grandpa Chandler opened the door, who stood there but Santa Claus.  He came in, partook of what hospitality the family could offer (to do otherwise would’ve been an insult) and, finally, started passing out presents.  Grandma got an apple, an orange, a little bucket full of hard candy and baby doll.  And, she was elated.  She remembered that Christmas Eve until the day she died at the age 95.  How do you think kids today would react to such a meager haul at Christmas?

A lot of Christians go around this time of year, saying to anyone that will listen “Jesus is the reason for the season”; then, they get in a fist fight over HDTV for 200 bucks.  If Jesus is the reason for the season, why don’t we act like it?  Why don’t we do the things Jesus did, like help the needy, the poor, and the marginalized?  Why don't we find someone who’s trying to do that and give them a hand?   Better yet, find a family in need and throw them a lifeline.  Hell, just quit thinking the guy panhandling is lazy and should get a job and give him a dollar.  Better yet, give him that dollar and treat him like an actual human being.  That would be a helluva lot better way to celebrate Jesus’ birth than busting out your pepper spray so you get those X boxes you <em>need </em>so bad.

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