Melvin from Oregon wrote to share a very special Christmas memory about a small gift that made a very big impression on him:
“Christmas 1945. I am five years old, and we are still staying with my grandparents… My father was in Japan in the Second World War, his two brothers were in the European theater. All three came home OK. I thank God for that and for all of the men that have gone before.
We are trimming the Christmas tree. Grandpa comes in, and he has all of these walnuts that he has painted silver and put a yarn loop on to hang them with. Well I think they’re neat, but that’s about it.
Christmas morning, I come down and start opening my presents. Grandpa says, ‘Why don't you open one of those walnuts?’ I say ‘Naw, I got to open my presents’… Well grandpa keeps after me. Finally, I say, ‘Okay!’ So I crack a walnut open, and a penny falls out. Well, NOW, I'm opening walnuts! There's dimes, nickels, and pennies. When I get done, I have about a dollar fifty, and that’s big money in 1945
…My grandfather thought enough of me to take the time to cut the walnuts open and take out the meat for grandma to cook with. Then he put a coin in and glued each one back together, just to make a little five-year-old boy happy on Christmas morning.
Sixty-five years later, I don't remember anything else I got that Christmas. But I remember the walnuts and the love that went into making them. That might be something for young parents to think about... It really is the little things that count the most.”
Thanks, Melvin, for giving us all something important to remember before we go frantically hunting for whatever the latest “hot” gift is.
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Nobody is more excited about Christmas Day than children, and sometimes, it inspires them to come out with some real gems. For instance, Mona from Kentucky wrote:
“When I was a child, we had a coal stove. One of those potbellied stoves. Of course with those stoves, there was a small pipe that went out the ceiling so the smoke would not get in the house. I remember wondering how Santa got down that skinny pipe. So one day I asked Mom how he got down that pipe. I guess I really put her on the spot because she replied, “He has a house key!” And that satisfied me.”
Thank you, Mona, and Merry Christmas to your mom, who I bet had to answer a lot of tough questions before you grew up!
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Here’s another story of a Christmas miracle that started with the words of a child. Tom from Louisiana wrote that he used to volunteer for the park district in Calumet City, Illinois, in a low income area. One year, the man playing Santa was ill, so Tom filled in. It was a hard job, listening to the Christmas wishes of hundreds of children, knowing most of their parents were too poor to make them come true.
One day, a little 5-year-old girl, as beautiful as a china doll, hopped up in his lap and didn’t say a word. He asked her if she’d been good and obeyed her parents. She said yes. So he asked what she wanted for Christmas. She replied, “Nothing.”
Tom was dumbfounded. He asked if she was sure she didn’t want anything. She said not for herself. But could Santa give her daddy a job? He needed a job. Well, Tom didn’t know how to answer that. So he just said he’d try his best, but that was one wish Santa might not be able to fill.
But, Tom wrote:
“God works in great ways. At the time the young girl was sitting on my lap, (a local reporter) was there taking pictures and…overheard the child’s conversation with Santa. The next day, the paper (ran a photo) of the little girl sitting on Santa’s lap with the caption ‘All she wants for Christmas is a job for her daddy’…The next day, the little girl’s father received a call and was offered a job. A day or so later, the little girl came back to see me with my favorite chocolate chip cookies and a thank you for Santa…
Till this day, and it’s been at least twenty-five years, I still tear up thinking about that little girl and her unselfish wish. Christmas is truly about miracles.”
Thank you, Tom. I bet that little girl was the best gift her daddy ever received.
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We are finishing the year 2019 and I’m glad. This has been a grueling year if you have to follow the news as I’m required to do as a TV commentator and publisher of a daily newsletter. I’m frankly sick of the never-ending serial attempts to overturn the election results of 2016. Remember when it was all about Russia and collusion? And then the Mueller report fizzled even though taxpayers spent about $35 million for a desperate effort to implicate President Trump. Then we heard obstruction of justice, until that “bombshell” became a dud; then it was quid pro quo, then extortion, then bribery, then obstruction of Congress. Frankly, given how recklessly irresponsible Congress is, obstructing it ought to be grounds for a prize, not an impeachment. But Democrats in Congress clearly are frantic because they have a weak field of candidates and they fear not one of them can defeat a President who has juiced the economy, jobs, the stock market and wages and who has pushed back against bad trade deals and America getting sucker-punched by foreign governments. We were once content to let the US pay the bills for NATO, trade deficits, and endless wars in the Middle East. Granted, President Trump isn’t always artful in what he says or how he says it, but he is disrupting the deep state of globalism, institutionalism, and bureaucracy. And the powers of government, media, and big business is fighting back—not to protect your interest, but theirs.
So next year is 2020, and I’ll attempt to give you 2020 vision into what we can expect for the coming year, which of course will be a Presidential election year.
I predict that Joe Biden will slightly edge socialist Bernie Sanders and will be the nominee for the Democrats-not because he’s a good candidate but because he will be viewed as not as crazy as the others. The media will ignore his daily verbal gaffes and he will be presented as a seasoned and ready captain, even though Bob Gates who served President Obama and President Bush 43 as a cabinet member said of Joe Biden, “He’s consistent in that every single position he’s taken on foreign policy is wrong.”
I predict that Democrats will pay a heavy price for having wasted a year of do-nothingness and millions of taxpayer dollars chasing down a reason to impeach President Trump. They constantly use the phrase they can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” but they tend to drop their gum on the ground and then get their shoes stuck on it. Voters in their districts have been benefited far more by the economic policies of President Trump than by the phony and hateful efforts by the Democrats to impeach him.
In other areas, I predict that Tom Brady will announce his retirement from the NFL—effective in the year 2045, and that the World Series will feature the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers. Not because I have any reason to actually believe that, but they are my favorite teams in their respective National and American Leagues and I just want that to happen. The Oscars will be canceled because no one wants to hear whiny Hollywood actors lecture us on their worthless political views. CNN will lose so many viewers that it will cease operations as a News Channel and will become a television safe space where triggered liberal snowflakes can sit in a dark room and watch a blank screen, which will vastly improve the programming they currently offer. And finally, the Huckabee Show will win 6 Emmys and 10 Golden Globes for being the best show in television! And that would truly be 2020 vision!
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