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About Wescolite (Dillon, Mont) 1949-2009 | View This Issue
Wescolite (Dillon, Mont), 10 Oct. 1997, located at <http://montananewspapers.org/lccn/Wescolite/1997-10-10/ed-1/seq-8/>, image provided by MONTANA NEWSPAPERS, Montana Historical Society, Helena, Montana.
Seasons Greetings by Ehren Cline The Christmas season has once again crept up on all of us, leaving us to scamper all over in hopes that we get all our cookies baked, the decorations up, the cards sent out, and our shopping done. Personally, I absolutely love Christmas. I look forward to this holiday most of all. 1 guess it’s just the certain feeling 1 get for these couple of months, the feeling that puts a smile on my face and a twinkle in my eye. There are few things that can bring this immense feeling to me, hut the Christmas season is one of them. Christmas is a time of cele bration. It is a time when families can come together to share dinner, presents, and company. It is a time when giving to others makes you feel on top of the world. Christmas is a time when we reach down deep and find happiness inside of us. 1 don’t know what we would do without this season. First and foremost we must remember what this celebration is for. We celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus Christ. We celebrate this great feat with the giving of presents to family, friends, and others in need. Christmas is very special, it brings families together to share in a wonderful celebration. We not only celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ but we celebrate family and togetherness. It is a time of year when everyone gives and receives gifts in Christ’s honor. Christmas brings out the best in all of us. In order for one to truly get the most out of the Christmas season we must believe in one famous individual, Santa Claus. As a kid I was brainwashed into the legend of one jolly old fella named Saint Nick. He and his workers, defined as elves, worked all year long in the North Pole making presents to give out to all the population that had practiced good throughout the year. On one day, claimed as Christmas Eve, he would travel around giving presents to all the gw>d people of the world. As a result, on Christmas Day people wake to a decorated tree with many gifts underneath it. At a young age I was governed by the edict “Those who don’t believe, don’t receive.” This ensured belief and loyalty to the legend we have grown so fond of. And so the general public has grown to love the legend of Santa Claus and more than 81% of all U.S. citizens’ believe in the legend and are current in the practice. People themselves have taken over the elf duties. According to legend, elves are Santa’s helpers. Their duties consist of merely making all the presents to go around to the people of the world. Every day we see bits of “Santa” expressed by our “elves” - in acts of kindness and gen erosity, in hope of peace, in the belief of higher self, and the continuum of an immaculate legend. We seem to catalyze our “elves” - (Santa’s helpers) - around Christmas. We make time to do things we never had time to do all year long. We find addresses of old friends and family that have been out of touch with for years. We express feelings and emotions we other wise keep to ourselves...keep secret. Christmas truly is the greatest time of the year. This makes me think of a story I once heard from a friend that has stuck in my mind since I was old enough to remember. Dif ferent families have different traditions, a fine idea in my mind, but this one has stuck out since I heard it. A family, we’ll call the Greggs, have a certain tradition as they sit down to eat their famed Christmas Eve meal. Before they sit down to the dinner table to feast they remove their shoes and put them out on the front porch, nice and neatly, in decreasing order of largest to smallest.They then proceed back less how this could happen every year. They never pass up the opportunity to share it with friends though. Stories like the Greggs happen every year, whether it he similar, or anything out of the ordinary. The sign ificance of this story' is not for you to try this but to merely tell a great story, one of which many people around the world have have for themselves. This is just one of the reasons Christmas is to the table to eat the same traditional meal they eat every year. They pay no attention to what is going on outside of their conversation and they proceed to devour their feast. At the end of the meal they all stand up to gether and walk to their door to find the shoes filled with candy. This is not it though. Everyone searches their right shoe for the hundred dollar bill that is given out to the family member that has been the greatest citizen all year long. The weird thing about all of this is the fact that there are never any trails of footprints in the snow (which they fail to shovel for the three days prior to the event). None of the family members are allowed to leave the table during dinner, which eliminates the possibility of one of them doing the deed. The Greggs have begun to accept this as tradition and wonder less and special to people. People have their own traditions and their own perks for the season, none of which are better that the other, hut ones that are special to the family involved in them. The bottom of the line is you make your own Christmas. Everything that happens over the season is because you participated and showed enough heart to believe in a legend that will probably never die. Parents keep the legend alive by doing for their kids what their parents did for them, merely believing. The Christmas season can be one of the greatest times of the year or one of the worst, depending on how you go about it. The season is one that is filthy rich with tradition. It is your own choice to believe in the legend of Saint Nick and practice it for your children so they can grow up and practice it for their children. I know things change with time but one of the longest standing legends of texlay is that of Christmas and all that accompanies it. It is in my greatest hopes that when I’m 40 with children of my own that they too will feel that feeling I got on Christmas morning, when I was ripping into those presents and my parents were in the background surprised as can be, that they too will have that same excitement and enjoyment. I will leave you with a story that I found to be quite enter taining. Enjoy and Happy Holidays. NEW YORK (AP)- He knows when you’ve been bad or good. And he knows CPR, for goodness’ sake. Ten sidewalk Santas rallied around a bicyclist who collided with a van Tuesday, tending to his injuries and directing traffic around the scene. “When the police arrive, there’s ten Santas standing around this guy,” said Bill Zanca, who hired the Santa salesmen to promote his great American Backrub shop. “Only in New York, right?” Fred Falls, an emergency medical technician who was part of the Claus cluster handed out promotional fliers, took the vital signs of 63-year-old Phil Anderson. Another jolly old elf held the man’s neck straight and the rest summoned help or directed cars on Third Avenue. “He asked me, ‘Am I in the North Pole?”’ Reichard said. Anderson was brought to a hospital for observation and released later Tuesday. What Do I Want For Chirstmas? by Chrissy Engellant The fall semester is almost over and Christmas is right around the corner. Christmas is my favorite holiday because everywhere I look, people are smiling, friendly and happy. Plus, it means a vacation! 1 was curious as to what kinds of gifts some students at Western would like to find under their Christmas trees. The responses I got led me to believe one thing, we all need a BREAK FROM SCHOOL! Jennifer Keller I would like to find a plane ticket to Orlando, Florida under my Christmas tree. L ance banning A new car. I Jenny Prone Keys to a brand new set of wheels. Lori Lewis My husband in leopard speedos. N eb Tooker Waist deep powder throughout the state, and a blowup doll. 8 Wescolire Wednesday, December 10, 1997