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Merry Thanksgiving! Christmas creep started early this year the day after Halloween. Known as the “pandemic pick-me-up,” putting up Christmas decorations earlier than usual is not just an American phenomenon. Christmas decor is flying off the shelves in Europe too. Psychologists call it “savoring.” Rushing Christmas is a way to connect with feelings of good times full of excitement and magic. Anticipating the holidays extends the euphoria. And in such a horrible year as 2020, we need a little Christmas like Auntie Mame in the musical Mame, who loses all her wealth in the stock market crash in October of 1929. Her response to financial ruin is a snappy tune by Jerry Herman:

JUST SAY NO! That’s how several of my relatives are handling Thanksgiving invitations to share a turkey dinner this year. My brother, Billy, would love to sit down with his son’s family and his grandchildren, but he has RSVP’d a definite “No.” His son’s mother-in-law in Houston is cooking the big dinner with all the trimmings and expects her family to show up. My cousin’s wife, Lesa, encountered the same pressure from her older brother. This will be the first holiday season without their father who passed away in January. Lesa responded with a big “No” to a family gathering.

Busing to Abilene’s Shotwell stadium on Saturday, Canadian’s Wildcat Marching Band could be sure of two things. The 259-mile trek hadn’t gotten any shorter or more picturesque since their last sojourn that direction, and the competition wouldn’t be any less rigorous.

Hemphill County 4-H’ers and youth from 20 Texas Panhandle counties competed individually in the District 1 food show sponsored by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service at the Tri-State Fairground’s Rex Baxter building in Amarillo on Oct. 20.

Friday the 13th will bring only good omens for fans of the Wildcat Band as CHS musicians present “Once Upon a Starry Night” at Wildcat stadium beginning at 7 pm. Bring your mask, socially distance from everyone, and prepare to be wowed by the show that garnered all 1s at the district marching contest.

Despite channeling beast mode on the court, Canadian’s Lady Cat basketball team are as tenderhearted as kittens when it comes to members of our community who may be food insecure. A canned-food drive initiated two Saturdays ago by the players involved their friends, moms, and two local church’s food pantries, and netted over 3,000 canned goods.

Thank you for your service! The observance of Veterans Day this week is a reminder of past divisions in the world and the men and women sacrificed by nations. Veterans Day was created to observe the anniversary of World War I, the war to end all wars, in which an unthinkable 20 million people died and 21 million were wounded. The conflict was so brutal, no one could imagine that such a war would ever happen again. But it did. World War II started a mere 21 years later, and 3 percent of the world’s population (70-85 million) died.

Hemphill County 4-Hers and youth from 20 Texas Panhandle counties gathered at Amarillo’ Tri-State Fairground’s Rex Baxter Building on Oct. 20-21 to compete in the District 1 Food Competitions sponsored by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

The Canadian Wildcat Marching Band earned Division I ratings at the UIL marching competition, Saturday, Oct. 31 at Amarillo’s Dick Bivins Stadium. Their “Once Upon a Starry Night” show featuring rock music of Coldplay and the lullaby “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ tells the story of a young girl awakening in a dream and learning to navigate her new world.

IT’S OVER. Election 2020 is behind us, and we have eight weeks left before we can say goodbye to a truly awful year. The pandemic will still be with us next year. So will political rancor. We at least have hope that a vaccine will put an end to the coronavirus. There won’t be a vaccine that will heal the red/blue political divide. The best we can hope for is that families and friends can restore harmony to their relationships. Whether or not our candidates won or lost, we all need to repair relationships damaged by political differences.