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Dear Editor,
This year, instead of following the commercial brainwashing, consider some of these ideas:
With 39% of our children being clinically obese, consider passing on video games like Major League baseball and "TV Sports". Buy them real soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs and bats (even if they're Wiffle balls ). I walked my dog around the west side of Dodgeville for 13 years and only TWICE did I see kids using any of the parks or fields on the west side (one baseball game at the grade school and a game of horse at Wilson Park). Sure there's "organized sports" but they don't build the comradery and healthy completion that pickup games do and from the kids I've talked to, not everyone can afford $150 baseball gloves and $300 aluminum bats (yes folks my age, that's $300 for a bat!).
Let your children start to discover the truth. YOU buy the great presents. Put YOUR Name or Grandma or Uncle Richdude on the big stuff. If for some reason you still want them to believe in Santa, remember this: When all the kids are told they get stuff if they're good and "coal in their stocking" if they're bad based on being watched by Santa, it sets up so many problems. Like the song says they should be "good for goodness' sake". If they want to be good, it's for Mom and Dad. When kids from better off families get back to school and brag about their Zbox 9000 (or whatever model they're up to) and Suzy's Mom could only afford a doll and some very needed new clothes and Jimmy got a winter coat and new shoes, they ask "Mommy, was I bad?", "Why is Chris better than me? He got an electric scooter!"
And while we're at it, getting back to fitness, NO BATTERY POWERED TRANSPORTATION!!
I suggest you Google up the Zager and Evans song, "In the Year 2525" where they warn,
"In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you."
Buy a Human Powered device. Buy a real bike and if they want to go to the pool (and buy annual passes as soon as they come out) they can ride there. I grew up in a very Dodgevillish area and I conservatively estimate 5-10 miles a day in the summer. Here's the bonus, BUY NEW BIKES FOR YOURSELF (and cool, high quality helmets for everyone)!!
Then share an idea like this.
Now gather 'round children, I've a story to tell.
A long time ago, in a place far away a baby was born, and he slept in the hay.
He's the Light of the World and that's why today, we use lots of lights on our Christmas Day. But the part that's such fun, besides knowing God, is how we celebrate his Birthday with gifts for each other (that's odd). We give to our Mothers and Fathers and Sisters and Brothers and Best Friends Forever and so many others. But gifts are not from some mystery man, but from people who love me, who know who I am.
We give like He did, our God up above.
He gave us His Son, a true gift of Love.

John Curran
Dodgeville, WI