Saving Christmas

Nothing will be done until we have realized that charity is not giving rewards to the deserving, but happiness to the unhappy.

G. K. Chesterton

Today-the day formerly known as Thanksgiving-marks the beginning of the Winter Festival of Getting and Spending.

For those who still yearn for the Spirit of Christmas a couple of ideas.

1. Watch the Greatest Christmas commercial ever:


Then remember Toys for Tots while doing your Christmas shopping.

2. Watch George C. Scott in the best version of A Christmas Carol.



3. The Salvation Army has done good work longer than any of us has been alive.

Huxley's denunciation of it for fanaticism and regimentation hindered it no more than did the disdain of professional men, who seemed to think that spirit seances and Theosophical jargon were worthier expressions of their feelings. It was not until George Bernard Shaw made the point in Major Barbara that the so-called elite began to appreciate what General Booth's movement had done for the uneducated, pauperized, and drink-sodden masses which Social Darwinism had complacently allowed to find their place under the heel of fitter men. Then it was seen that neither the fatalism of biological evolution nor the fatalism of 'scientific' socialism could withstand a vigorous assault by people who believed in the power of the human will and had the wits to combine religion, social work, army discipline, and rousing tunes.

Jacues Barzun, Dawin, Marx, and Wagner

Hit the kettles early and often. Cyber shoppers can go here.

4. Two more charities that do good work

Christian Appalachian Project

Charlotte Rescue Mission

Of gold she would not wear so much as a seal-ring, choosing to store her money in the stomachs of the poor rather than to keep it at her own disposal.

Saint Jerome: Letter 127