The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

THE NEW TANNERTHURSDAY,DECEMBER 20, 2007 9THE NEW TANNER THURSDAY,DECEMBER 20, 20078 Distributed to every home in Acton and area as well as adjoining communities. 373 Queen Street East, Unit 1 Acton, Ontario L7J 2N2 email: thenewtanner@on.aibn.com Mike OLeary Angela Tyler Rebecca Ring Matthew Reid Justina Pembleton Publisher Editor Ted Tyler Hartley Coles Editorial Contributors Advertising and Circulation Composing Marie Shadbolt Ken Baker Tracey Gardner Justina Pembleton By Angela Tyler EDITORIAL with Hartley Coles (519) 853-0051 Fax: (519) 853-0052 Every effort will be made to see advertising copy, neatly presented, is correctly printed. The publisher assumes no financial responsibility for typographical errors or omissions in advertising, but will gladly reprint without charge that part of an advertisement in which an error may occur provided a claim is made within five days of publication. All articles, advertisements and graphic artwork appearing in The New Tanner is copyrighted. Any usage, reproduction or publication of these items, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher of The New Tanner is a copyright infringement and subject to legal action. Christmas: There is a lot to be said about Christmas. For many, it is time for family, friends and of course, there is the religious aspect of it if you wish. However, for more than less, it seems to boil down to retail, retail, retail. In a way, I feel like Im sounding like fellow New Tanner columnist Mike OLeary. Every time I hear the one restaurant commercial on the radio about the Festive Spe- cial I want to cringe. My festive mood turns sour and I feel my teeth clenching. Sure there are lots of other religions and celebrations, but what is wrong with Christmas? Are they just trying to mass market their special to every religion or celebra- tion by eliminating the Christmas Special? About two weeks ago, I had to call our insurance agent. The receptionist floored me with her greeting. Merry Christmas she answered the phone. I was so pleased that someone wasnt politically correct I told her boss how nice it was to hear it. This past weekend, I had no choice but to enter the land of retail seasonal hell. I put off Christmas shopping long enough. I could no longer avoid leaving Acton for the land of shopping malls. I had pur- chased as much as I could in town, yet there were some things I had to buy elsewhere. I felt my life being sucked out of me as soon as I opened the door to the mall. I tried to be optimistic with Christmas carols playing through the P.A. system and the decorations throughout, but my pessimism soon returned as I stood in the endless line in one of the bigger depart- ment stores. I couldnt hear the Christmas car- ols over the employees paging other employees to different departments for customer assistance. Santas helpers, a.k.a., the store clerks, were seemingly worn out and quite frankly, almost as miserable as the courier driver who comes into our workplace. He has been grumbling for weeks about the endless hours of delivering Christmas parcels to the wee hours of the night, working 12-plus-hour days. The one clerk I had to deal with earlier, complete with holes in her earlobes the size of a nickel and pierced lips she insisted on playing with her tongue, seemed to forced out a grunted thanks. However, I refused to give up hope. Surely there was a Christmas friendly retail sales clerk somewhere in the mall. It was my turn at the checkout at the big retailer even though my original thought when I saw the line-up was, Im outta here. Instead, I decided to take a differ- ent approach. When the over-tired, grumpy, fed-up-with-the-season clerk took my cash and looked distraught, I said, Have a Merry Christmas. With that, he stopped for a moment, What seemed to be him almost in shock and then with an enlightened look replied, Yeah, you too. Okay, it wasnt exactly a Charles Dickens moment, but there was a glimmer of hope. At that point, I knew what I wanted for Christmas. Dear Santa, besides world peace and all that stuff, if there is anyway you can stop making it cool for teens to have giant gapping holes in their earlobes, my Christmas will be complete. Is Christmas just retail, retail, retail? And they saw a star in the East showing where the Babe was born. Believe it or not, by the time The New Tanner is distrib- uted on Thursday, there will only be four days until the Eve of Christmas and a celebration weve been anticipating for weeks Christmas Day. Although some of the media, in all its forms, try to obscure the reason why Christmas is so widely celebrated around the world, the reason for the season, as the saying says, is the birth of Jesus Christ. We are fascinated, or should we say saddened, by the efforts of those who do their best to change the meaning of Christmas, or to denigrate it in any way they can. Christmas is a time for joy, celebrating the birth of One whom Christians believe is the Son of God. Long before political correctness, Christmas was also a celebration of peace on earth and goodwill to men. It spilled over from the churches into homes, the streets, the shops and schools. The joy, the sense of peace and goodwill was pervasive. It had no religious boundaries. There were no holiday trees, happy holiday greetings and few attempts to play down its real meaning. As one edi- torialist wrote recently, In one sense, this symbolic cleansing of Christmas is little more than an exercise in hypocrisy. Politically correct euphemisms and ribbons of turquoise and magenta instead of the traditional green and red dont really conceal the obvious rationale for closing schools, stores, banks and factories celebrating Dec. 25. And in another sense, taking Christ out of Christmas is a denial of the tolerance, diversity and inclusiveness in which Canadians take so much pride. In welcoming people from far-off lands to this country and encouraging them to preserve their traditions and cherish their beliefs, the Christian majority in Canada has shown a profound respect for others, a generosity of spirit and a mea- sure of tolerance thats an example for the entire world. Its hard to imagine that anyone would work to deny Christians their Christmas traditions just because they are the majority. But Canadians have shown a remarkable tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions, and also joined in celebrat- ing their festivities in a spirit of goodwill. In return we would expect a similar spirit for Christmas, not as others would like to transform it into a meaningless holiday and instead of a holy day, the original meaning of the word. After all, whats there to celebrate? the arrival of snow, the winter solstice or some other name such as Festus? In our attempts not to offend anyone in our now most di- verse society, we could lose the real spirit of Christmas which includes goodwill and much joy to everyone of all faiths and cultures and extends beyond that to those who have none. If we ever lose it as a nation then well be dispensing with the most joyous time of the year for a mess of meaningless trivia. Fortunately, Canadians are starting to wake up and fight back at those who would destroy the foundation of our Christian culture and belief. The churches of Acton are actively pro- moting the Keep Christ in Christmas theme with signs and billboards to let the revisionists know that Christmas, as we know it, is still very much alive. It will take more than holiday trees, happy holiday greetings and other superficial swipes at the meaning of Christmas to replace the spirit of goodwill and peace that pervades the traditional Christmas. In that spirit the publisher and staff at The New Tanner wish everyone A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! Its the reason for the season