Editorial
Lisa Dumontier

This is our last edition of 2011. Yep, we finally have the snow to show for it and 2012 is just around the corner. Given the fact that there will be no December 28th the Northern Sun News edition, we get to go out with a bang around here by celebrating the end of the current year with a festive holiday extravaganza—or so you’d think. Believe it or not, news is still happening every day around us and while we’d love to dish out an edition filled with cookie recipes, letters to Santa and age-old renditions of “The Night Before Christmas” and “Frosty the Snowman”, that’s not entirely possible but it is the holidays and to celebrate this, we thought we’d round up some extra Fa la la la to grace our holiday-wish filled pages.

So in my struggle to amass some holiday content for this week’s edition of the Northern Sun (‘tis the season and all that jazz) I came across this super cool website that allows you to personalize a video message for that special someone in your life. Available at www.portablenorthpole.tv, the website allows users to create a personalized video from Santa Claus for their children, friends, family members or colleagues by providing a few little details about the person which are tabulated in a pro/con sort of fashion and sent to the elves’ “naughty or nice” machine to help Santa decide whether or not the person in question will receive goodies or coal in their stocking this year.

It’s probably too late to count on a response from Santa in letter form but as this website so realistically proves (just ask my three year old daughter who is petrified of Santa and nervously watched his message for her before refusing to tune in to her sister’s), it’s not too late to get video confirmation on whether you’ve made the naughty or nice list this year. As Santa will tell you, no matter which list you’ve landed on, there’s still some time for improvement so to all you parents making good use of the “Santa is watching” threat, there’s still a couple of days to go before that warning officially goes out the window. To all the rest of you—young or old—regardless of the arrival of gifts and whatnot, considering which list you land on and how you may improve on your standing would serve you well this holiday season (and year round really).

I was once asked to consider whether or not I was a kind and generous person and before I could form my response, was told that no matter how I felt about myself and the effort I was making to be a good person, I needed to try harder. Every year in December, we all seem to take stock of the previous 12 months and set our sights on improvements that can be made during the incoming year. With the anticipation of December 25th, we gather and celebrate and make charitable donations, help families in need and let the little things go but by mid-January, when the spirit of the holidays is long forgotten and our daily lives are back in full-swing, that sense of charity often gets lost in the day-to-day shuffle.

The holiday season is no doubt special. I get that. But maybe this year, as we consider where we’ve been and where we are ultimately headed in 2012 and beyond, it would do us all some good to also consider how our actions affect others and how sticking to the “nice list” year round could not only improve our own lives but also the lives of the people around us.

Happy Holidays!

Letters to the Editor can be submitted via news@thenorthernsun.com