Christmas 2024, A Harbinger of Hope In Dark Days

Looking out from my windows these past few days, it’s a Bing Crosby kind of Christmas, though I don’t think the lovable melodic crooner meant knee high snow drifts and single digit temps when dreaming about his ‘White Christmas’.

It’s Christmas, not just here in our Acadian fishing village home in Nova Scotia, but everywhere.

Tonight at midnight when the Christian World celebrates the Birth of Baby Jesus, Brian and I will finish our November 30-through-to-midnight- December 24, St. Andrew’s Christmas Novena, hoping that: “In that hour vouchsafe O My God to hear my prayers and grant my desires through the merits of our Savior Jesus Christ and of his Blessed Mother”.

We sent out a Canada Free Press Christmas message to our readers and columnists today, thankful that we could share our Christmas wishes over the Internet, now that Canada Post strikers finally came back to work following their long layoff, but knowing mail delivery is still backed up because of the strike’s length.

Feeling somewhat remote because of the storm outside, we were thrilled to receive responses from dear friends near and far immediately One from Sam Clovis Jr. had us tearing up with joy.

“Dear Friends, Classmates, Flying Buddies and Family,

“I want to take this opportunity to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons from Char and me. We are finally back together in our own home, celebrating the blessed birth of our Savior for the first time in six years. We are so excited about having a tree up, decorations around the house and presents arrayed all over the living room, just out of reach of our puppies.

“We are praying for a wonderful new year. Our hopes and dreams are best preserved and advanced in the most wonderful country in the world. God Bless You and the United States of America.

“Sam Clovis, Jr.”

I knew Sam and had made him part of my life ever since he interviewed me on his popular radio show.

Donald J. Trump’s Policy Advisor in his 2016 presidential campaign, Sam sadly ended up in and out of VA hospitals, where his school principal wife Char had to travel many long miles to visit him.

In one of our telephone calls, Sam told me how lost he was to be separated from his wife and how much he missed their beloved dogs.

Six years is a long time, but on this special night, Sam, Char and their puppies are together at home.

Many folk think that Canada Free Press is just “Judi and Brian.” But in Truth CFP is a combination of our loyal readers, columnists, its ‘feeders’ and commenters, in which Totsy, in far away Louisiana is still our ‘Comment Queen’.

Earlier a Catholic priest we got to know back in Ontario, now serving in Cyprus in a church behind a barbwire fence, responded to our Merry Christmas wish: “I hope you have a great Christmas with very many happy memories of Christmases past.”

That message resonates with us because we know that Christmas for all of us is forever.

Christmas 2024 is a special Christmas of Hope, as we patiently wait for the January 20 Inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump, whose devoted intent is to return America to its glory.

It will, of course take infinite patience for us to wait it out—patience and unflagging hope.

God was with President Trump when he survived an assassination attempt on July 13 in Butler, Pa.

He rose to his feet after being hit with a bullet that grazed his ear, standing tall and telling rally attendees to “Fight!, Fight!, Fight!” giving us the kind of heartfelt hope that would see us through tumultuous, frightening times.

With the Almighty’s Help, all we need to see it through until January 20, 2025, is patience and the will to stay the course, hunger and the cold of winter notwithstanding.

Better days are just ahead, everyone. God not only hears our hopeful prayers, but answers them.