As you know, I’m a huge Disney fan, but I have seen certain trends that seem to exclude all of us that joined the Mickey Mouse Club back in the fifties and I just can’t keep quiet anymore. Is it just me, am I being too critical? I was unable to watch the annual Walt Disney Christmas Parade which is now called a “Frozen” Christmas celebration(?) because I was with family and friends who might not have wanted to watch the Walt Disney World Annual Christmas parade. Of course, being a huge Disney nerd I DVR’d it to watch later.  When I got the chance to watch it, I watched something that was made for mostly 6 to 12-year-old girls and not the wider audience that Disney attracts.

Does Disney really think the only ones that care about everything Disney is 6 to 12-year-old girls? It seems that the Disney Channel is either for kindergartners or 6 to 12-year-old girls. That's fine for certain hours of the day. It is fine for certain special programs as well. What about those of us that have been Disney fans since birth and are now into our golden years.

But let me get back to my subject - the Annual Disney Christmas Parade should be about the parks. The Christmas parade should be about the parade and things that Disney has planned in the future. It should be about the entire family enjoying Christmas. The singers that were picked this year were not of my taste, not that that would have mattered if they had a Christmas parade.

They showed 4 very short scenes of the parade and hardly anything of the parks. I did however like the bringing together of friends and families that they did, that was a wonderful touch. The thing that bothered me the most was that the tradition of Santa Claus being the very last float was gone and as a matter fact you only saw Santa Claus one time for an extremely short scene. I love Frozen but number one, Frozen is not a Christmas movie, has nothing to do with Christmas. Number two, it would have been great to have had some of the Frozen music and even Olaf put in at various points of the parade, but to let it take it over completely The Walt Disney World Annual Christmas Parade and not have the parade or Santa Claus, in my opinion, was just atrocious. This was just my opinion and I'm sure that young girls loved it.

I have every single Christmas parade on VHS tape or DVD since it started. It has been a tradition in my family to watch the Christmas parade from Walt Disney World and now the other theme parks as well. But it almost seemed like Christmas was just something added in here or there with only one traditional Christmas song sung by Tricia Yearwood. Disney has been on a trend since the Disney Channel got rid of Vault Disney many years ago, to eliminate any of their audience over the age of 30, what is with this?

Disney should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a ho-hum, just okay production that in my opinion had little to do with Christmas and celebrating Christmas and, come on, where in the world was Santa Claus? I must say that this was my opinion and I'm sure all the little girls out there loved it, but wasn't it supposed to be for the entire family?

I met a woman today

I met a woman today that came in to buy a television. I was showing her the various models and I told her that, in my opinion, the Samsung had the best overall picture of any of the televisions today. I showed her a Samsung model that was not a smart TV and she said that was okay, that they did not surf the web that much, so I knew that she knew nothing about what a smart TV really was. I explained to her all of the various channels that are available on such things as smart TV’s and Roku streaming boxes. She seemed extremely interested in both the TV and the Roku box. So I explained more of the features of both the TV and the Roku box and how well they would work together to give them as much entertainment value for the least amount of money. As we went to the register to ring her up she explained that she was buying it for her husband who is battling cancer and going through chemotherapy and that 2014 had been an extremely rough year for them. I told her that it also had been an extremely rough year for us. She also explained to me that her husband was pretty well bedridden and unable to do any of the activities that he used to be able to do and that she was doing this to keep him from being bored and worrying about his situation. I almost broke down right there at the register but I fought back the tears as hard as I could not to upset her. I told her that I would keep her and her husband in my prayers and she then told me that she was a breast cancer survivor. So I shared with her that I had lost my mother at age 52 of breast cancer. I could see that we were both at that point holding back the tears, so I quickly finished the sale and wished her an extremely very Merry Christmas.

God takes the opportunities to bless us and tell us that it could be much worse and that he never puts us through more than we can handle. I must confess though, the thought that I might have given her husband a little bit more joy or happiness by explaining to her what the Roku box had to offer that her husband might like was an unexpectedly nice Christmas present for me. I said a little prayer for both of them on my next break and prayed that they would find the Western channels that he loves so much and that he would find a little joy and happiness from my gesture. There are good people everywhere if you only take the time to look for them.

I know I would be completely beside myself if my wife was going through that kind of pain and misery. I am worried sick about my best friend through junior high school and high school because she is going through that kind of pain and misery. I am concerned for my cousin who just had an operation, and her daughter who was recently in a car accident and I pray for them at least three times a day, if not four. I know that it’s not the amount of times that I pray but the sincerity of my prayer and God knows that I am a compassionate and loving person and I pray for everyone that is hurting, suffering or lost. I say my special prayers for my dearest friend and my lovely cousins every time I speak with my Lord. My best friend was like a little sister to me and when the lady at the store told me her story, I was thinking of my best friend. I know it was selfish and I asked the Lord to forgive me before I prayed for the lady and her husband. God bless them and comfort them and healed them. Amen.

The Miracle of the Tree

There was once a young boy who met a lovely young dark-haired green eyed girl at the gates of Graceland. This young boy followed this gorgeous young lass to the land of ice and snow, Canada. Of course, they were wed and worked hard to make a life for themselves. The young man was restless and missed his home in the great state of Tennessee. Things had changed for them in that great land of Canada and they needed to change. The young man was homesick and his young lass perceived his heart ache and craved a bit of adventure for herself too, so she put forth the suggestion that they move back, back to the Tennessee hills where his heart lay. The young man had a hard time making the decision because he knew she was leaving her family behind just like he did. They made the move to the Gateway of the Smokey Mountains in the Tennessee hills. They built a wonderful log cabin that they call home.

During the time they were building their dream home, they had gotten to the point that money was short and there was none for luxuries such as a Christmas tree or even presents for each other this year but they had each other. They had to finish closing in the house because they were expected at her parents’ home in Canada for Christmas. They lacked one thing to completely close in the house so they could leave to go to Canada so the young man raced to the home improvement store in Knoxville, Tennessee and looked around to find this part he needed and he saw outside a stack of Christmas trees. He went over just to smell the fragrance of pine and he actually rubbed one of the trees and walked away to purchase the part he needed to close the house. As he wiped a tear from his cheek a clerk walked up to him and said “Sir, do you need a Christmas tree” and he told him “I would love to have one but I cannot afford one this year”. He said, “don't worry sir, we stopped selling them, if you would like to have one please pick out the one you want and I will help you load it on your truck”. He was astonished and even asked “are you sure” and he said “of course, they're just going to go in the dump if you don't take it”. He paid for the part he’d come for and he and the gentleman walked out to the truck and loaded the tree. He wished the clerk a Merry Christmas and he wished him the same. If the clerk had only known how much he had made his Christmas. No matter how much he thanked him, he could never know what it meant to him and that dark haired, green eyed girl from Canada.

He rushed home to close in the house and hurried to put up the Christmas tree before his wife could get home from her job. He searched through box after box after box in the basement, unable to find our Christmas tree stand and just as he was about to give up, low in behold, there it was laying on the floor. I guess he had knocked it out of one of the boxes and hadn’t noticed. Personally, I think it was divine intervention to find that Christmas tree stand on the floor where it shouldn't have been. He picked it up, climbed the ladder up to the second floor and I mounted the Christmas tree into the stand just as his wife walked through the back door, through the kitchen and into the great room. She said, “I thought we had agreed we could not afford a Christmas tree” and he told her that he had not purchased this tree. “This tree was given to us by a kind clerk at the home improvement store”. They both stood around that Christmas tree hugging each other and cried at the miracle that God had given them, the gift of this tree. Every time they’ve been down and out, God has sent them an angel to remind them of his love and his power.

I hope that your Christmas Angel is watching over you just as ours does for us. God bless you all, God bless you everyone and may you have the merriest Christmas you've ever had.