Christmas is in full tilt and the stores are full. It is driving me nuts.

Every time I go shopping I find something that is one-tenth the price that I paid for it last week. I think there should be a law that says that “all merchants should charge the same price for a thing until after Christmas and then sell it for whatever they want to”!

I think I’m just going to give everybody on my list money with a picture of what I wanted to get them and tell them on the card to go buy five of them after Christmas. It would save a lot of time and they would get five times the ‘stuff” from me. When Bubba, Jr. and Lil’ Bubba got to be teenagers that is what I did with them. It saved a lot of wrapping, time on Christmas Morning unwrapping presents, and they loved going shopping the next three days with the money. It has carried over to this day. They look forward to their Christmas check! Now, that may sound a bit Scroogelike, but hey, we loved it! It gave us time to remember what Christmas was really about.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. It is not a “holiday,” or a “season,” nor is it about gift giving. It is the Christian celebration of the person/God a religion was founded on. However, we invite all to participate, every single person in the world, regardless of religion, country, color, or nationality. We are not selfish, we love to share.

If you want to share, great, if you don’t then don’t beat me up for celebrating what I believe in. I’m tired of being pushed around for my beliefs. I don’t push you around for yours, unless you are tying to kill me. If you want me dead in the name of your God, we got a problem, the first one is “why are you here?”

Christmas is about memories, as well. It is not about the “cost of thing” and “how much you can give or get,” it is about forgiving and hope.

My best Christmas memories:

¦ One Christmas Eve when my brother came home unexpectedly from Viet Nam, and the look on my mother’s face when he walked into the house. He had been shot and was missing for months, we didn’t even know where he was! My mother is a WWII Marine, and how much we had under the tree didn’t matter for the rest of the day!

¦ Then there was the Christmas Puppy, a runt of the litter that nobody wanted, small, ugly and unwanted. Brownie became the greatest dog in Fountainebleau, Mississippi for the next 12 years and when she died it was the first big hurt of my life. Twentyseven people came to her burial under a Pecan tree that became a shrine.

¦ My first son, upon seeing his first Christmas Tree fully lit up, was able to take his eyes off of it for the entire day, and finally,

¦ After 17 years of being alone, when I asked Tarsha to marry me beside a Christmas Eve fire, and she said yes!

None of these things had anything to do with the “cost of things” and “presents,” well, maybe the proposal did, that is a big stone in that ring, but the thought of how much it cost has never came into my mind since. It ain’t about what you got, or how much you give, it’s about memories.

What is your favorite Christmas memory? I hope you find a quiet moment, in a favorite place, and the right words to tell someone your favorite Christmas memory this year. Not for them, but for you!

Merry Christmas, and I just thought you’d like to know...