CHRISTMAS CHEER?

Go back in time with me. the year is 1000 A.D. There is a great Christmas feast. Stuffed Pike, fried Dolphin, chicken, ham, turkey, stuffed goose, great cornicopias of vegetables and fruit. After the feast and merriment, we will go outside and watch the kinghts joust, and play games. Christmas is wonderful.
The year is now 1400A.D. and Christmas is illegal. In the past, along with the merriment and feasting, Christmas became persona non grata. There were fights. Arson. Theft. There were even riots. Church leaders became impatient with Christmas, and then intolerant of it. They got Christmas celebrations banned. Violation could result from a simple fine to death.
Move forward with me. Here sits a little man. He is holding a quill pen and is seated at a small table. The paper he writes on is illuminated by a small candle. The man is writing a story. The story would eventually become famous. The story was about Christmas,(a serious infraction of the law), but his story made it clear that only a changed heart could understand and apperciate Christmas. The story would make Christmas legal again. The man's name is Charles Dickens, and the story he wrote was "A Christmas Carol".
Fast forward again. it is 2008, at a Wal-mart in New York. It is the wee hours, and a crowd is restless. They break the door of the store, because they want to shop. One person is injured. One person is trampled to death.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not just those people, but anyone who loses the spirit of the season because of a good sale. Your selfishness and greed demean you. How dare you take a holiday that is meant to bring us together, and run it down to how much you can spend, and if you can beat somebody else to the candy canes? Of all the unmitigated gall!!!
If you don't get the great stuff, are you going to lose your family? I think not. Will your child soar into great bouts of depression, because she didn't get the latest Bratz doll? No. Will the world end, because someone got the last big screen tv? I doubt it.
Do we need to wait until Christmas is illegal again, before we realize what the day is all about? Will we see it too late?
HOW MANY MORE MUST DIE FOR YOUR GREED???
How long until another Charles Dickens comes along and teaches us all a lesson?