December 2010 Editorial

Here we are in the last month of the year, where did the year go?

Monthly editorials are “supposed” to be a well thought out crafted prospective, but what if you don’t have that one single prospective and all you have is all kinds of random stuff, then what? Perhaps this is the prospective of a typical December. Rather that try to fake some sort of cleaver seasonal message, this will be a collection of staff thoughts as we all try to make sense of this time of the year.

 

Ready, start… GO…
This seems to be the time of the year that people tend to go haywire which always boggles the mind. These are the same people that are usually pretty even keel the rest of the year and yet when December rolls around they become their own enemy.

What’s with all the pressure to go out and spend money you don’t have to buy gifts for people and who is behind this, is it the churches, the government, the major retailers, the media, personal guilt?

This has been and insane year, had a job, lost a job, got another job and now glad to have a job to complain about... that atleast pays the bills. Shitty jobs should motivate us to look for better jobs. Some people have been on unemployment for 2 years, some of those people just kicked back and never looked for jobs or went back to school, others the whole time have been actively looking for work. There is something to be admired about the ones that always looked for work.

Lot of factors can get people really down during the holidays, some get so depressed that they need some serious help to cope with this time of the year. If you are feeling desperate, alone or hopeless, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255), a free, 24-hour hotline and talk to a counselor. Or go online HERE and seek some assistance.

One year there was this group of friends that had a FU Christmas celebration. Rather than get caught up in all the consumerism of the holidays, this group of friends gave the gift that would keep on giving and spent their Christmas eve and day helping out an elderly lady. They had heard about this old lady that was a chronic hoarder that 2 days before Christmas was visited by the building inspector at the apartment she rented. The inspector had saw the 15+ years of hording (pack ratting) she had done which certainly posed a fire and health danger to the other tenants in the building, there was barely a path to walk inside her apartment, the situation was really bad. The lady was served with a 5-day eviction notice if the excessive contents of the apartment were not removed. The group of friends spent their holiday getting her place in order. The day after Christmas the building inspector came by to see if there was any progress. To his surprise the apartment was cleared of all the stacks and stacks of hording, the place passed the inspection and the eviction lifted. This could have been the lost scene out of the movie, Pay It Forward.

Is there some secret religion that no one knows about? The religion that gives a person free reign to just be a total jerk off human being 11 months of the year and when the calendar gets flipped to December you have to be the cool with people? This is a faith that we all should reject with impunity. What is even worse is that the rest of us that are not part of their twisted belief system take these people in, let them come to our parties or family events all because they turned into nice, generous and charitable people on December 1st .

Do you have any people around you that when you have a 12 pack of beer they are your best friends, and as soon as the 12 pack is gone they want nothing to do with you?

As for the rest of us, we are gonna like what we wanna like, if people are gonna judge us for what we wanna like then that is how it has to be.

Perhaps the greatest words ever spoken and something to keep in mind as we head into a new year:
”Just remember that you can’t return to the golden ages of the past, you must always look to the future.”
- Youth Brigade in 1984 -

Have a good time this month regardless of what you do and we will see you all next year!

 

 

 

 

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