Christmas - Merry or Not!

When I was in school, there were, a few people who wouldn't sing O Canada or say The Lord's Prayer - yes, I went to school that long ago!  But, the rest of us still did.  I can't tell you who they were - that wasn't important then, nor is it important to the comments now.
I am reminded of the hypocrisy of the Christmas season within some of our retail chains. Those who, for political reasons, don't want their employees saying 'Merry Christmas' or have Christmas carols playing, unless they are songs like 'Jingle Bells' etc. In other words, nothing faith based.
An employee of a store belonging to a chain of stores, reports being sent home for saying 'Merry Christmas' to a customer.  Whether this was entirely factual or not, I don't know, but, this same store was selling Christmas trees (or are they now called holiday trees?), decorations, Nativity Scenes/mangers, etc., and all that is acceptable, but, don't go saying 'Merry Christmas'.  Isn't it reasonable to assume that someone buying any of these products is celebrating Christmas?
Aside from all of this, the reasoning is, that while Christmas is a Christian celebration, not everyone is of the Christian faith.  Well, yes and no.  Yes, Christians celebrate the birth of our savior in Bethlehem.  And we give gifts to one another, but, the Christmas tree, Frosty, Santa, Rudolph, all of that is commercialism; most notably a device of Hollywood.  Yes, Christians have adopted the tree, lights, decorations, etc., as part of the season.  And 'Christ' still is part of the name of the celebration. But, for the most part Christmas has less to do with faith, unless you are of that faith, than it has to do with celebration, sharing, kindness and generosity to one another.
Why should anyone be offended by someone saying, 'Merry Christmas', Happy Christmas or any other quip that adds Christmas to it?  Christmas is celebrated the world over.
And so, to all - Merry Christmas and may the peace of Christmas dominate and not the debate!

Don't Believe the Claims!

I want to preface this article by saying, it’s entirely my own fault for shopping online!  I promote live-able neighbourhoods and shopping in your own neighbourhoods, but, I also don’t like to go out in the winter and therefore resort to online shopping. 

Screen Shot of Ebates.ca

I was thrilled to come across Ebates.ca (Canadian version of Ebates.com), which states there are no catches, just money back on all your online shopping through their site. Great!  I don’t like reading fine print and rarely do – it’s time consuming, onerous and if a site says there are no catches – that should be binding, period!  So, online shopping I went. 

Walkability Factor!

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may remember that back in October 2013, I wrote a blog entitled Live-able Neighbourhoods. Following the release of that blog, I was contacted by a local grassroots group that is also interested in the viability and sustainability of life within neighbourhoods. I have become involved in one of their projects and while I wholeheartedly support their efforts am unable to commit too much time to their projects. Whatever we can do, individually or as a group, to direct attention back to the extinction of live-able neighbourhoods is commendable.  

Tune in - to People!

Every Christmas we start thinking of the new year and what we will do, what we would like to do and what we would like to accomplish. If I could have one wish for 2015, it would be that we would become more aware of people in all aspects of our lives

When we become so engrossed in our own world, to the exclusion of how, what we do affects others, we run the risk of creating that which we don't want. People who need our attention don't suddenly appear. They have been here all along, but, we've been too preoccupied to see them, let alone attend to their needs. Not everything is going to be so drastic as the following examples, but, the fact is, this does happen. Don't let it happen on your watch.