By: Ernie Wren
Holiday celebrations continue throughout our community, and if you missed the reindeer and celebrations at “In Any Event,” you really need to hope they do it again next year as it was amazing.
Congratulations to the winners of the Ashland Christmas parade float contest: Black Dog Outdoors (1st), Girl Scouts (2nd), Geneva Financial – Carrie Mertensmeyer (3rd) and the “Mini Jeep” (4th). All of the entrants had great set ups, and it was tremendous fun! While the winners of the Christmas house decorating contest will not be announced until Sunday, you should drive by and look at the festive homes that are participating. They are listed on the Boone County Journal’s Facebook page.
You might want to make plans for the Southern Boone Senior Center’s New Year’s Eve celebration from 7pm to 10pm (if you are over 50 you can appreciate the timeframe!). Please note that all events at the senior center are alcohol and tobacco free. The senior center is located at 406 Douglas Drive in Ashland. If you are 55 years or older, you might consider joining the center. The fee is only $15 per year per person, and you can mail a check made out to “Southern Boone Senior Center”, or send cash, via P.O. Box 25 Ashland, MO 65010.
Their annual Spring Fling is scheduled for March 6th/7th if you would also like to put that on your calendar. Congratulations to the newly elected officers of 2025 for the Senior Center: President Maureen Sieve, 1st Vice President Brenda Austin, 2nd Vice President Bev Steelman, Secretary Carol Rumble, Treasurer John Sappington, and board members: Margie Selbach, Charlie Selbach, Jim Crane, Jim Sieve, Jeanna Bishop, Glenda Smith, Rachel Martin, Patti Kyle, Mary Martin, and JoAnn Millar. Thank you for all that you do for the community!
Rather than ending this with a quote this week, and since the Journal will not be published next week, here is a classic for all of us to read again in the spirit of Christmas, and the “Reason for the Season”. Merry Christmas!
Virginia,
Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to our life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your Papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove?
Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.
Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond.
Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.
-Written by Francis P. Church in 1897
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