Le NEWS VIEWPOINT Christmas spirits ‘setting to feel a lot like Christmas,’’ you are not alone. The Christmas spirit usualiy manages to elude most people at this time of year. For the past two months, they have been locked in a frantic battle to beat the Christmas shopping deadline. They have scurried, scraped, scratched and clawed nights and weekends to fill stockings and other portions of their Christmas shopping lists. They have been planning menus, | F THINGS for you have been slow in Christmas Day looms as a 24-hour period in which to spil) the emotions built up over the past two months. Any day, regardless of its significance, would be hard-pressed to withstand the demands of so much emotion and expectation. It is little wonder, then, that ‘‘it just doesn’t feel like Christmas this yeer,’’ again. But Christmas is not really a day at all. Ic is, or it should be, a spiritual state of mind, a realization that there is more to life than what money can buy. organizing guest lists, social Christmas outings. participating in functions and attending school It is a time to embrace those things that bear real value in this world: family, friends, and the miracle of existence itself. They arrive on the eve of Christmas, exhausted. There ain’t much more than that folks. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “The purpose of the watershed is to produce good water, not good timber.” Western Canada Wilderness Committee director Randy Stoltmann, on logging: in the North Shore watersheds. “Never in all the years I have been in North Vancouver have I seen the water so bad and for so long.” ; North Vancouver District Ald. Ernie Crist, in introducing a mo- tion requesting that district coun- cil oppose watershed logging. ‘We went in in the middle of winter, and we were lucky: we were in the banana belt — it only hit minus 72.”° Publisher Associate Editor _. welcome but we cannot accept responsibilily Peter Speck Managing Editor Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Advertising Director . Linda Stewart North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an incependent suburban newsnaper and qualiled under Schedule 111, Paragraph tt of the Excise Tax Act. 1s published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Snore Free Press Lid. and aistnibuted lo every door on the North Shore Second Class Mail Registration Number 3685 Subscnptons North and West Vancouver, $25 per year Maiting sates avaiable on request. Submissions ate West Vancouver entrepreneur and media personality Art Jones, describing his newspaper assign- ment in 1947 to cover the story of decapitated prospectors in the Northwest Territories. “I was wide awake during: the whole operation. They just froze the top of my head. I could feel him popping the eye out. They pressed hard and it popped out.”’ Ninety-five-year-old Christine Anderson, on her recent eye transplant. “Maybe I'll start winking at the ladies.’ Ninety-five-year-old Christine Anderson, to her doctor after she was informed that her eye THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER ‘north shore SUNDAY +» WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 59,170 (average, Wednesday Friday & Sunday) for unsolicited maternal including manuscripts and pictures a which should be accompanied by a stampec, addressed envelope SDA DIVISION Dispiay Advertising Classitied Advertising Newsroom Distribution Subscriptions Fax transplant might be from a male donor. . “Ht was a three-ring circus with tents and beer, and I think it was a disgrace. We're still feeling the after-effects of this.” North Vancouver-Seymour con- stituency association president Er- nie Sarsfield, on the 1986 Socred leadership convention, “It's never stopped council be- fore."’ North Vancouver District direc- tor of development Richard Plunkett, when asked whether council could unzone a designated district property using the same process used to initially rezone that property. 980-0514 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 MEMBER x, @ Confessions of a guilt-laden Christmas slob THE BEST THING about Christmas morning is that there’s no longer any point in feeling guilty about any- thing. At least, not until the January bills arrive. From October onward — to us Christmas slobs — the season of joy brings a burden of mounting guilt week after week ht begins at Thanksgiving, when some sadistic disc jockey first re- minds us there are only 76 shopp- ing days left. Good grief, we're late already! Why didn’t we stock up, like they said, with last year’s Boxing Day bargains? Forget the Indian sum- mer outside — Christmas is off to a bad start once again. Initial guilt gets sidetracked for a few weeks by a rash of black and orange decorations, witches’ hats and grinning pumpkins. But promptly by 9:30 a.m. on November Ist the scene changes overnight to twinkling trees, twinkling Santas, Christmas cards, giftwrap and all the other Yuletide insignia. Gotcha! Now, only 50 days left and the guilt trip REALLY begins. First with all the gift problems we’d have solved for one tenth the price last January. What do they all want, anyway? Can we get away with $300 per kid without seeming cheap? How litle will keep our spouse happy? And if spouse-less, can we face our ‘‘significant other’’ with less than a $500 trinket on Christmas morn? . Then, entertaining. The guilt of the hospitality we owe all those dear folk we’ve never had back. All this heavy-duty navel-gaz- ing, the endlessly revised ‘to do’ lists, organizing the party — and mending the home afterwards — gobble up the days. We’re just about to hit the malls (20 shopp- ing days left) when a new load of guilt descends: we've forgotten about the deadline for Christmas HITHER AND YON cards Why, oh why, didn’t we buy the cards 11 months ago and write them in August on the beach? The next week’s shopping hours are eaten up scribbling, licking, wrapping, address-hunting and waiting in line. Then at long last (13 days left) we’re away to the stores. So, beaten and bowed, we'll stagger home tomorrow at 6 p.m. with the last salvageable bits and pieces — only to find we must still dash down to the drugstore for more giftwrap. Yet finally, when Tuesday dawns, that crushing load of guilt will suddenly vanish — as we real- ize it’s now too late to do a damn thing about it. Our usual bot- ched-up happy Christmas has returned, But NEVER AGAIN, we swear! Tomorrow we'll spend all Boxing Day in the malls. Did someone say ‘‘Ho-Ho- Ho’’? KING-SIZE CHEER ... Sentinel staffers John Isernia and Bill Plant present Ruth Stout of the West Van Santa Claus Fund with a cheque for $4,351 raised by a teachers’ and staff charity auction.