By JODI RAE INGSTAD

“I wish me a Merry Christmas,
I wish me a Merry Christmas,
I wish me a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!”
Before you make the judgment that perhaps this Christmas I may just have turned myself into a narcissist, fear not. I’m just wishing myself a Merry Christmas in an attempt not to offend some of you.
Every year I get flabber-wondered by how my belief in Jesus Christ bugs some of you so much. Luckily for me, the majority of the people who stop to talk with me also share the faith I claim. I have a strong pull to eras past and this week I examined some of the reasons why. Way back when Christmas began to be celebrated as a holiday, it was a time of raucous carnival celebration.  
As the years past it became a time of reflection, a time of peace, a time of sharing with family and of great nostalgia. I don’t even like to type the word, “pagan” but I must. I like to believe like others do that Christians adopted Christmas as the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus in order to win the souls of pagans.  But this is just my own personal belief so don’t throw a tomato at me with your vocal chords the next time you see me uptown.  
By focusing the day on the birth of the Christ child the pagans were kind of forced into learning about Christianity and all of its promises. No scholar knows for sure the exact date of Christ’s birth but that’s not the point of the holiday. The point of it is that we re-evaluate our lives, our agendas and our eternities.  
I like Christmas for all of those reasons and because I get to remember my past. My mom and dad were alive as were all my grandparents. All of the tastes and feelings and smells of Christmas come back to me. My favorite memory is our trek to church every Christmas Eve for our Christmas play. Each of us had a “piece” to share. We spent weeks memorizing it and practicing the perfect enunciation.
It wasn’t about the presents under the tree. It was the anticipation of the emotion of Christmas, the spirit and the joy.
Recently that husband of mine and I entertained at a large event. We were told prior to this shin-dig to be sure not to use the word, “Christmas” during our monologue.
It didn’t stop there. They reminded us to be sure not to play any music with the word, “Christmas” in its lyrics.  “But, isn’t this your companies Christmas party,” I asked inquisitively?
When I asked it, I could feel my face making those contortions I so wish I could stop. The answer was, “Well, it used to be our Christmas celebration but now we can’t call it that for fear we may offend some of our international employees.”
Gulp. Hold me back. Stop me. Help me not to speak the words that are flashing frantically on the invisible digital sign in my head!
Let’s just say I purposefully made it a point to offend some people that night. I felt like such a little rebel. Better yet, there were no consequences to my actions.  I wouldn’t even think about taking the “Ra” out of their Ramadan so who do they think they are attempting to take my Christ out of my Christmas?
This has become so consuming to me that I left a new message on my answering machine.  “Merry Christmas.  That’s right! I said, Merrrry Christmas! If that offends you then just hang up and call someone else. For everyone else leave your name and number and don’t forget the reason for the season. Merry Christ-mas.”  
My gift to Christ this year doesn’t require wrapping paper. I’m giving Him me. It’s my way of keeping Christ in Christmas. How will you and your family keep him there?

By Roger Bluhm

Valley City State University’s Century Club is the fund-raising arm for Vikings athletics. Recently I accepted a position on the Century Club Board of Directors and have been in over my head ever since.
    Lots of times they discuss plans and what’s been done in the past – things since I’m still a relative newcomer to the area that I don’t understand.
    Recently it was decided that our main raffle prize this year would be a GEM car. These all electric cars are street legal and can be used as golf carts as well. They are perfect for zipping around town in all kinds of weather.
    Yes, I said all kinds of weather.
    For the version we are raffling off this year comes complete with doors. The vehicle is red and white and whoever wins it will be required to register the vehicle and pay all associated costs.
    Here’s the fun part. Buying the tickets – which I should mention are a steal at just $30 – enables you to be included in drawings at all the remaining Dakota Athletic Conference games at VCSU this season. A $50 drawing will be held at these games.
    If your ticket is drawn at the game you will have a choice: Take the $50 or be an automatic finalist for the GEM car, which will be given away at the annual auction in April.
    Taking the money doesn’t mean you don’t have a chance at the GEM car still. The ticket will be placed back among the others. But, seven people will have a chance to guarantee themselves a much better shot at winning the GEM car.
    I’m a golfer. I see lots of potential for such a vehicle. Getting up, driving to the golf course and then just driving on the golf course. I wouldn’t even have to take the golf clubs off.
    The doors on the GEM car are removable, so in nice weather –

 or on the golf course – you don’t have to be shut in. The trunk on the back of the GEM car can be replaced with a golf caddy rack fairly easily.
    For those who are stuck in the holiday spirit, I would love to mention that Century Club raffle tickets make great stocking stuffers! These tickets will be on sale at all VCSU events and by any Century Club board member.
    Oh, did I mention I have some for sale here at the Times-Record? Call it a lucky break that one of the Century Club board members also is the publisher of the newspaper. So, anyone who would like to purchase a chance at a GEM car, please get in touch with me here.

* * *

    While I’m talking about raffle tickets and such, I would be remiss if I didn’t encourage everyone to take the time this holiday season and do something for those in our area who aren’t as fortunate as some of us are.
    There are numerous opportunities to help – buying items from holiday wish trees in the area, giving food to the food pantry, donating clothes to various drives – and we hope everyone reaches out a helping hand to others.
    As we celebrate this season, both giving thanks for all we have and worshiping the birth of Our Savior, it would take just a few moments to help others who may be struggling this year for whatever reason.
    I for one, have most things in life I could ever want. I enjoy this season for giving – to my family – but last year my wife and I gave back to someone who had little. It was one of the most rewarding holiday seasons we had ever had and I believe that rewarding feeling is truly what the holidays should be about.

By Steve Browne

“One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of
decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on the more usual (and more exciting)
principle of substituting "the good guys" for "the bad guys".”                                                --Thomas Sowell

Governor Blagojevitch of Illinois has been caught with his hand in the biggest cookie jar in state politics.
The FBI arrested him for pretty blatantly attempting to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama to the highest bidder. And evidently, there were a fair number of interested customers.
It's official now, Chicago politics is corrupt. Oh whatever will this poor old world be FORCED to endure next?
 There is, of course, a lot of partisan back-and-forth about whether the president-elect knew about political corruption in the state he so recently represented.
I sure hope he did. I'd hate to think our new president was that dumb.
Let's get a few things clear. You cannot work in Chicago politics, heck you can't even live in Chicago, and not know it's corrupt through and through.
That is not the same thing as being personally corrupt. Obama had to know the nature of the Chicago political system to work within it. But any man as smart and ambitious as he is would keep clear of personal involvement in anything illegal, if he aspired to the highest office in the land.
Did he have contact with Blagojevitch about who was going to fill his seat?
Let's see. Would the leader of the party in power, which is within spitting distance of having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, be just the teensiest bit interested in who's going to get his old job?
Do I even have to answer that?
Obama would be failing in his duty to his party if he didn't try to have some say in picking his successor. That doesn't mean he was in any way involved in attempting to sell the office. That's the governor's prerogative under the current rules.
I am, however, irritated my new president thinks so little of my intelligence that he doesn't think I understand this, and attempts to deny any contact with the governor.
Not long ago, Democrats swept the congressional elections, campaigning against a Republican “culture of corruption.” They were quite right.
Now Republicans are crowing about the Democratic culture of corruption. They're right too.
Why is politics so corrupt?
Could it be that when you give ordinary human beings (and believe me, I've stood next to enough politicians to know they're not made of any special stuff) great power and little accountability over raising and spending trillions of dollars, they get tempted to grab some of it for themselves every now and then?
And it's not going to get any better, until we relearn what those brilliant, cynical, idealistic men who founded our country and wrote its constitution knew.
It's not about throwing bad guys out and electing good guys. It's not about expecting elected officials to be immune to the corrupting influence of power. It's not about looking for angels to govern us.
It's about working with human nature, not against it. It's about creating the mechanisms of transparency, accountability and oversight.
It's about making the powerful live under the same rules as the rest of us.  

Steve Browne is a reporter for the Valley City Times-Record.

By Tricia Velure Nissen
Special to the Valley City Times-Record

The first time I asked to borrow my mom’s krumkake iron before Christmas, she baked me a dozen krumkake.
“No, Mom,” I said.  “I don’t want you to give me krumkake.  I want to make them myself.”
Krumkake – pronounced “kroom-kah-kuh” – is a Norwegian treat that my family enjoys every Christmas.  Those of us from North Dakota’s pronounced Norwegian communities consider krumkake a staple on the holiday goody tray along with lefse, rosettes and sanbakkels.  (For those of you not familiar with krumkake, the word essentially translates to “curved cake” – imagine a waffle cone crossed with an Italian pizzelle.)
Growing up, I always helped Mom prepare far too many holiday foods for a family of five to handle.  After we filled the fridge-freezer and deep freeze, we’d move onto tractor and combine cabs – whatever was cold and inaccessible to the farm cats.
Krumkake was always a favorite of mine – plain-tasting in true Norwegian fashion, yet beautiful in its shape and elaborate pattern created by the krumkake iron.  My mom and I would drop a spoonful of batter onto the hot iron atop the stove burner, wait 30 seconds, turn the iron over to brown the opposite side, then open the iron and begin rolling the hot, flat cake around a cone before it turned crisp.  Ah, baked art at its finest.
By the time I was in my 20s, flat-top stoves made the traditional krumkake irons less practical.  My mom bought an electric model resembling a waffle iron.
When I asked to borrow it, this was probably the first time I had shown any real interest in preserving a baking tradition.  I didn’t go into detail about my wishes – I just told her that I would make the krumkake that year.  That would explain the already-baked krumkake that arrived at my door a week later.  She thought I was just hungry for krumkake.
In reality, I was growing up and realizing the enduring importance of family traditions.  Now in my 30s, I make the krumkake every Christmas.
Every family has its own favorites.  If other moms are anything like mine, each child’s favorites land on the goody tray each year.  But some of the old favorites – like krumkake – will disappear off the next generation’s goody tray if this generation doesn’t learn how to make them.  And that, sadly, will end the tradition.
This December, make it a point to have a baking day with mom.  Let her be the master while you’re the apprentice.  After all, the technique is often the tough part, so getting the recipe isn’t enough.  Then after Christmas, practice alone to make sure you can do it with no help.  This will surely be time well spent.
Tricia is the lead writer for a public relations firm in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  She is the daughter of Jack and Lennie Velure of Kathryn and a graduate of Valley City State University.