Christmas time was here again. Christmas has so many different meanings for all of us.
For a lot of people it is time to get together with family and friends. For others it can be a very sad time as they experience their first Christmas without someone they loved. And for some it can be sad as they were not fortunate enough to be born in a family that ever knew love.
I adopted four boys at three different times and each time in the classes I took they stressed that a kid who grew up not feeling loved left major problems and scars for life. If I were younger I would have adopted more kids. I have always been a sucker for the underdog in many different situations.
Life is short and I think the older you get you realize that and your priorities change.
I challenge each of you to have every member of your family do something nice for someone this Christmas time. As a dad, I can tell you some out of the nicest gifts are those handmade items or drawings that simply say, “I love you.”
At church Sunday as part of the Christmas program, organizers had a few recorded testimonies of hope. One young lady struggled with addiction for nine years. On the verge of losing her son and husband and also considering suicide one day she fell to her knees and asked Jesus to help her.
She had tried everything else and had already tried to fight the addiction by herself. She is now clean and on a better path.
The cattle market for both fat cattle and feeder cattle has been much better for several months. But imagine where would be financially if we had organizations and feedlots and politicians and cattlemen that had the guts to stand up for what is right. I still believe our best bet is to get three grocery chains together and build a packinghouse owning only 15% each and the public owning the rest of the shares. The grocery stores would pull a lot of retail business with them.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and out on the ranch the pond was frozen and so was the branch. The snow was piled up belly deep to a mule. The kids were all home on vacation from school. And happier young folks you never did see. Just all sprawled around a watchin’ TV. Then the power went off and the TV went dead.
When Grandpa came in from out of the shed. Those lines must be down so in the dark he found his guitar. He started singing Christmas carols like Silent Night and the one about the star. Then Pop read a passage from the Bible you see. And the youngers finally agreed it was a good eve.
Grandpa woke early not to tell the kids his trick. He said, “The power company sure got the line repaired quick.” Last night for the sake of some old-fashioned fun. He had pulled the switch, the old son of a gun.
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
