POEM: On this Christmas Eve, we will share a gift of poetry from Kane’s Frances Wolf Haight. This one is called “Twelve Days Before Christmas.”
We bought a tree to decorate,
And goodies to serve on each plate,
We bought some gifts for each one,
And also games to have some fun.
We thought we were ready for the day,
To celebrate in a costly way,
But, oh dear, we forgot one thing,
To go to church to hear the choir sing.
After church, we will praise the Lord,
With his guidance, we’ll never be bored,
He shines his light into each heart,
And then we begin to do our part.
When we pray, he listens to each,
And helps prepare all of us to teach,
We pass his words on to others,
Relatives, friends, sisters and brothers.
Each one we love as we pray,
They will have a glorious day,
Gifts are nice, I must admit,
But the love of Jesus is really it!
—————
NORAD: We have some good news for children: despite the government shutdown, NORAD will still be tracking Santa this year.
There’s an app for it, and there’s a website where children can learn more about the North Pole.
There’s a library, arcade, music stage, theater and the NORAD office.
For 60 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight. From the website:
“The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.
“In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.”
