As I suggested in this column a month ago, I think Christmas has become too focused on consuming things. That's understandable, after all, most people like getting presents, and most of us, either to a low or high degree, enjoy giving.

And, giving presents has a new upside.

As also I mentioned last time, some international helping organizations, such as World Vision and Compassion Canada, have catalogues that allow you to buy goats, chickens, seeds and tools for resource-starved families in developing countries. Not bad, for a lot of people the Christmas season was definitely good. The CBC reported that volunteers and businesses in Medicine Hat, Alberta, surprised Andrea Maksymowich. Her 34-year-old husband was killed while he was working under his car last March. It fell on him. Ms. Maksymowich was pregnant with their third child. Dozens of volunteers, $45,000 worth of materials donated by businesses, and a 7.5-hour work binge later, Maksymowich had a renovated home.

“It makes you realize how much people actually care for other people, and no matter what happens in the world, everybody is there for every body,” Maksymowich said.

Meanwhile, not a few music lovers were ecstatic about the reunion performance of Led Zeppelin. The Youtube postings showed them having definitely aged since their glory days in the 1970s, but they probably sounded better. I saw them in 1971 and the sound was terrible. About three quarters of the way back on the floor of the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, we had to ask ourselves what song was actually being played. This, in spite of the fact that I knew the Led Zeppelin catalogue backwards and forwards. I played their recordings (on vinyl) every night for over two years. It was a bit of an obsession, I admit. And maybe, now as then, the thing was just to get into the same room with Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham for a few hours.

Maybe the best Christmas present we received this year came from Bali. It seemed bleak for a while there, as Canada was being labeled as obstructionist. Joining the delegates from Japan and the United States, Environment Minister John Baird refused to go along with the majority at Bali who were working towards a global agreement. In the end, as you probably know, following the dramatic turn-around of the U.S., he joined in, but rather grumpilly, claiming that the targets are unreachable.

For the moment, whether the targets are reachable might not be the most important thing. It seems to me that what's most important is that all the planet get to work cooperatively on reducing global warming. It used to be that people warned against World War III. I think we're in the thick of it and the enemy is climate change. God bless you in 2008.

Michael Veenema is a former chaplain at the college. He currently lives in Fall River, NS.
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