The Day After Thanksgiving

     For those who want to know, Gus is still missing.  I am sad about it, but looking forward, not backwards.  What a gift to have enjoyed such a happy, free-spirited, loving little beagle.  If he is still alive somewhere, I am praying that he has found a good home where his keen sense of loyalty and fun will be fully appreciated.

     Joe and I travelled to Staunton today to pick up chicken feed.  Around every turn in the road we saw deflated Christmas decorations sprawled in soggy brown yards.  They looked like the aftermath of a drive-by shooting.  I know, I know.  You have to wait until night for the magic to begin.  That's when these scraps of cloth and thread rise to glow on lawns like blimpy aliens from a nylon planet. They are kind of neat, then, but really does the baby Jesus have to be right next to Sponge Bob on the lawn?  And it's a little creepy to have a ten foot snowman towering over the manger.  This time of year, right after Thanksgiving makes me a little cranky.  America is so conflicted about this "holiday season."  We're not even allowed to say the word Christmas in school anymore and I love Christmas carols, but I don't want to hear them as the background music to advertisements for chocolate and sodas and cars and ipods.  That's why I wrote this song.  It reminds me to keep my eyes on the main thing.  Hope it helps you, too.

The day after Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping begins
We can’t forget Aunt Myrtle or her husband Uncle Ben
We must find the perfect present for each person on our list
It’s critically important and no one must be missed

We wear ourselves to shadows of our former jolly selves
We shop like Martha Stewart and we work like Santa’s elves
We decorate and bake and clean and decorate some more
We’ve got to match the beauty of our neighbor’s house next door

Children whine and whimper and they drag their folks around
From computer store to toy store they shop all around the town
They long for something special that will really thrill their heart
They think that they will find it at the local Walmart

Christmas presents stacked beneath a lovely Christmas tree
Christmas presents PILED UP HIGH, are all of those for me?
Christmas presents wrapped in paper, tied up with a bow
Gimme, what’d ya get me? I just really have to know

A tiny babe wrapped up in a handmade cloth of love
The shepherds wonder at the angels singing up above
The wise men cross the desert as they travel from afar
To find the baby savior sleeping underneath the star

A Christmas present in a manger underneath a tree
A present sent from heaven, is it really just for me?
A Christmas present wrapped in love and placed into a stall
God sent His love at Christmas—a gift for one and all.

So when I hear commercials and see Santas all around
Or hear the registers ringing as the shoppers rush through town
I just turn my head and listen to the angel’s distant song
Joy to the world….
And then I sing along….

A Christmas present in a manger underneath a tree
A present sent from heaven, is it really just for me?
A Christmas present wrapped in love and placed into a stall
God sent His love at Christmas—a gift for one and all

As we begin the Advent season, I hope you hear angels around every corner singing "Joy to the World."