Reflections of an unquiet time

It's been really hard to blog lately, so I haven't. It's not that there isn't anything going on to blog about. It's because there is too much to blog about. By this time next week, Christmas will be over. The stress of "Did I buy enough? Did I forget someone? Are we now bankrupt?" will be put away for another year.
This year, there were two children that dominated the media, because their plight dominated our hearts. They touched us. This first was Kaylee Anthony, a little two year old girl we were made aware of in July because she had been missing for a month before her grandmother made a 911 call for help. The second child was Brenden Foster, an eleven year old boy we learned about in November, who was dying from leukemia, but was selfless in his pursuit for food for the homeless.
Neither child will be celebrating Christmas with their families this year. It appears that Kaylee was killed sometime during the summer. Brenden died just before Thanksgiving.
When you reflect on the smiling pictures of Kaylee, lying unknown and unburied for six months, a senseless, useless murder and the heartrending sadness of the passing of a gentle soul like Brenden to an economy that is seeing record amounts of American's losing their homes and their jobs, who really feels the joy of Christmas? Who can really afford it? Who wants to?
If I didn't celebrate Christmas for religious reasons, ie the birth of Jesus the Christ, I probably would skip Christmas this year.
Instead, despite the advice of the economists to spend, spend, spend! and save the economy, our Christmas celebration is returning to it's 1930's roots - it's revolving around family, shared meals, and a minimum of presents.
It will probably be the best Christmas celebration we've had in a long time.