Let the magic heal

Again this year, holiday writings from Morgan County children are found throughout our Christmas issue. What better way to convey the wonder and excitement of this magical season than to see it through the eyes of the young? It really is their time of year.

We all know how those childhood holiday memories stay with us for the rest of our lives. As writer Larry Wilde once put it, “Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.”

To make way for our Christmas greeting, we’ve moved the front page news to the back page. After all, most things take a back seat to Christmas. But if you’re looking for “serious” local news, you’ll find it in this issue, too.

No December 26 issue
Each year, we get calls during the last week of December asking, “Where’s my Morgan Messenger?”
We’re glad that so many people look forward to the newspaper every Wednesday, but, be warned, there will be no Messenger on Wednesday, December 26.

As is our longstanding tradition, we do not publish between Christmas and New Year’s so the staff can take a break and enjoy the holidays.

The Morgan Messenger office will close at the end of the business day on Thursday, December 20. We will reopen on Friday, December 28, which will be the deadline for the January 2 issue. And, of course, we will be closed again on New Year’s Day, January 1.

Looking back on 2012
Our January 2 issue will not only catch you up on what happened around here at year’s end, but will also feature “Looking Back at 2012” in the Morgan County area.

Each year has its own mood and character, and this one has been no exception. It’s been a year of weird weather and hard storms, a year when voters stuck with incumbents in most cases, a year when the international picture continued to be fuzzy, and a year that ended tragically with yet another shooting spree, this one in which a deranged young man killed 26 students and teachers in a Connecticut elementary school.

Though we’re told the recession is over, the road remains bumpy for too many people and, as we go to press, the “fiscal cliff” is just around the bend. We suspect the plunge will be avoided, but not even the economists know for sure.

For now, we hope the joy of the holiday season will push any troubling thoughts out of your mind. May 2013 be kinder to us all than 2012 often was.