Celebrate the Holidays

Shannon Bohrer

(12/2012) This is a wonderful time of year— Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is coming. Christmas infects me with joy and happiness. I like this time of year, the weather, the holiday spirit, the Christmas music, and the idea of peace on earth. There is something magical about the Christmas Holiday, getting together with family members, neighbors, co-workers, and friends for meals, visits and sometimes just coffee. For me, it is truly a magical time.

This year there is another reason to be happy— the election is over. I am sure that after the election about half the U.S. population is happy, while the other half is not. To the half that are not happy, if you must be unhappy, this is the best time of the year to be so. For the half that won the election, the holidays are like having extra dessert with dinner.

Although the election is over, the political experts keep rerunning the election and telling us why they won, why they lost, and how the strategy was flawed or how it worked just right. It is amazing that the liberal press was responsible, the attack advertisements unfair, how the single women were brainwashed and how the demographics were for/against them. Given this wealth of information, the political experts are already telling us what each party has to accomplish before the next election. Primarily, what is required is to attract more minorities: more single women, more Hispanics, more Asians and more African Americans. As one political expert said, his party needs to have more non-white males as the face of the party. Forgive me, but I thought the election was about which party and/or candidates had the better ideas to fix the economy. If you listen closely, you would get the vibe that the purpose of a political party is simply to be in office, so that they can be in charge.

I do have empathy for the party that lost. They paid a lot of money to win the election and it did not work out for them. It is estimated that the total spending for the presidential election was about six billion dollars. That is a lot of money. Then of course the billionaires that spent so much and still lost have the consolation prizes of senators and congress persons. There certainly are a lot of them for sale, but according to the news accounts they are getting very expensive.

On a related note, having a national election before the holidays comes with a second bonus: the political advertisements are over. I hate to admit it, but there were a few political advertisements that confused me. Take the advertisement that allowed you to buy a Chiai pet in the form of Romney or Obama. I bought both of them and they both grew hair— I thought it was their noses that were supposed to grow. Anyway, I was considering cleaning them up and repurposing them. I have two close friends, one from each party. I think it would be nice to give the democrat the Romney Chiai pet and to give the republican the Obama Chiai pet. Who says we can’t get along? Besides, these are difficult economic times and we all have to sacrifice where we can. I wonder if they will be collectables in the future.

I am surprised that the issue of voter fraud, which was all over the news before the election, has seemed to vanish. It must be that the major news media outlets think that since the election has passed that the fraud no longer exist. Let me give you an analogy. You go into a store and purchase a product. You inquire of the sales person about the use of the product, what the product is capable of and any problems that the product may have. The salesperson gives you assurance that the produce will perform as advertised and comes with a warranty. You purchase the product and take it home. Then you discover that it does not work as advertised. Is it false advertising, an uninformed sales person, or is it just fraud? If you purchase a product and it does not work, is that not like electing a politician who doesn't work, at least work as promised? Our elected officials are just like the products we buy, and we never seem to get what we pay for. Additionally, the product maintenance is very expensive. I believe that falls into the category of voter fraud. Of course since this type of voter fraud has been going on for so long, maybe it’s just expected and that is why the news media ignores it.

Although the political advertisements are gone, in their place we now have the holiday advertisements. We have gone from "hope and change" to "if you send me your change you can hope I will send you a product that you believe you need." We have the traditional holiday gifts that everybody needs and we have the standard gifts for someone that you have no idea of what to get them (i.e. the Chiai pets and the clapper). I won’t even bring up the traditional Christmas fruit cake— after all, I wish to stay in a good mood.

At a recent gathering, a family acquaintance said to my wife that Christmas is all about children and gifts and added that the gifts teach the children to appreciate the Christmas spirit. My wife replied that she thought Christmas was about the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of our world. It’s no wonder we get so upset about politics, if we can’t agree on the purpose of Christmas, how could we ever agree on politics?

For me, it is a special time to enjoy our family, friends and neighbors, to enjoy the holiday spirit and to pray and hope for peace on earth. Maybe the peach on earth could start with a political truce, at least until next year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!