There will always be a unique aspect to Christmas that can’t be trumped by any other holiday.

Christmas is, of course, a Christian holiday, a celebration of the Christ child, Jesus, who was born to a virgin to save mankind from its sinful nature. Of course, non-Christians celebrate the holiday while not necessarily subscribing to the belief that Jesus was God in the flesh (Emmanuel translates as “God with us.”) What’s not to like about the songs, the traditions, the trees, the movies, the gatherings, the food and the gifts?

I don’t believe it’s coincidence that the brightest of all holidays occurs at the shortest and darkest time of year – the winter solstice (Dec. 22). Historical record suggests that Jesus was born in spring or fall 4 BC, not necessarily Dec. 25. But at the very time when mankind needs hope in the most dismal time of year along comes heartwarming Christmas.

Christmas has an appeal to most people but it certainly has its downside. More people get depressed at this time of year than any other. Just Monday a young lady committed suicide in downtown Modesto by jumping off a parking structure. There’s the pressure to buy and give, and to host others they may not like being around. There’s also the let-down when that ideal gift doesn’t come – or in this economy, no gifts at all. Also a letdown in that there isn’t enough money to spend the way we wish to lavish gifts on those we love. It can also be hard seeing this magical holiday fade away to normal life on Dec. 26, softened only maybe by the prospects of another holiday on Jan 1 and another day off work. But even New Year’s Eve can get a person down if they reflect on what’s been a year of losses or difficult transitions; or perhaps fear changes that a new year may bring.

The holidays might magnify a sense of loss as we think about Christmas gatherings with family members who’ve passed on. Our mind drifts back to times when our grandparents were with us in joyous times only to think they’ve been dead for decades.

It’s hard for me to watch the 1964 Claymation TV show of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” because my sweet cousin Sandra Dodd would cry when Rudolph was being made fun of by the other reindeer. Leukemia took her from us as a 10-year-old girl in 1975. Even more poignant now is how my mother, who died in 2020, would mention every year how Sandra was saddened by the TV show.

Gosh how I miss them.

I confess to being a sucker for nostalgic Christmas music. I prefer listening to the songs from the era of my growing up years. Christmas makes me want to hear Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas,” or Nat King Cole sing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. I can even stand to her Jimmy Durante’s “Frosty the Snowman,” or tolerate Ethel Merman singing “We Need a Little Christmas” or Eartha Kitt’s mildly naughty “Santa Baby.” Gene Autry is alive and well when I hear “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Shivers go up my back when I hear “Ave Maria” or “O Holy Night.”

Occasionally I remember sitting on the floor of our Milpitas house in the mid-1960s opening gifts like pop guns from Granddaddy or bump-and-go toy trains that smoked. (I do happily remember toys were made of metal in the 1960s, not plastic.) In those days Christmas trees were gaudy with heavy tinsel and giant multi-colored house bulbs. I recall the countless times the dreaded fruitcake was a gift. My great Aunt Alice would always hand out a box of chocolate covered cherries.

Then there’s the parade of must-see movies – “Christmas Story,” “It’s A Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” As I watch any of the “Home Alone” movies in my mind’s eye I can see my children parked in front of the TV sucking their thumbs only to remove them to laugh. I recall buying my oldest son, Bret, a “Talkboy” recorder modeled after the one Kevin McAlister uses in the movie.

My mother has passed on and my dad is far away in Alabama. He got out of California last year because of the high cost of living and a state where he doesn’t pay property tax as a senior.

Now I’m at the station of life where I can only hope the kids come home for the holiday. To see them reunite over food and games is definitely fun. But two of my children are out of state and won’t be around.

There is immense power to the season. The stingy can take a generous tangent. The argumentative lay aside differences. The nasty can become mellow for a season. I prefer to think it’s because of what the holiday represents: God reaching down, extending His hand of fellowship and offering a gift that can’t be bought delivered in a supernatural package that only came once. This one day can prompts millions of believers and millions of unbelievers to lock up the store or office, and travel home as the whole goes on a collective party.

No story has given me more of an awe of the season than that of the legendary Christmas Eve truce of 1914. Troops numbering 100,000 from Germany, France, England and Scotland were fighting the war in Europe (World War I) and felt compelled to quit fighting for one night and threw down their weapons when one side heard the tender strains of “Silent Night” coming from across enemy lines. The story is told that opposing forces made the frightful walk across the battlefield and exchanged food and souvenirs, sang carols and playing games. “We could see lighted matches, and where they couldn’t talk the language, they were making themselves understood by signs. Here we were, laughing and chatting to men who only a few hours before we were trying to kill,” later wrote Corporal John Fergusen of the Seaforth Highlanders. The fighting would resume the next day – in some cases the next week – and the killing continued. By the end of 1918 the war would have claimed 9 million. If only that one night, where enemies ended fighting in a shared celebration of the Prince of Peace, would have continued.

Of course the cease-fire, unsanctioned and unplanned, was denounced by commanders on both sides of the conflict. But what a wonderful and moving picture of the power of unification and hope represented in Christmas.

The temporary truce compels even the skeptic to consider what makes this festive holiday different from the others. Is this all man-made baloney or is there really some unique force behind it? Seeing how the holiday has remained with us all these thousands of years, there is far more than we acknowledge as a frenzy shopping season.

Without such hope, the world would seem incredibly darker, indeed dismally and eternally dark. That would be terrible.

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Say what you will about Ceres resident John Warren being a “Karen” or a “Kevin” when he reports instances of code violations but he’s merely pointing out how the city hasn’t stopped the peddling that seems to be everywhere.

He recently emailed photos of someone in a van dropping off people and sacks of oranges at different locations, this one at the Bank of America. Now last time I checked you can buy bags of oranges at any of the grocery stores in town so why would you buy them from peddlers who conveniently park themselves in front of ATMs?

Farther down the road a vendor recently popped up selling whirly type of toys. In September I saw that a man set ouy ceramic figures on the sidewalk next to Walmart, like this was the U.S. border entrance at TJ.

It’s time we cracked down on illegal immigration and had an immigration policy that allows people into our country who have skills we can use. No wonder former Ceres Mayor Louie Arrollo – who has Latino blood – said Ceres looks like a Third World country.

Maybe Code Enforcement should direct these peddlers to the El Rematito Flea Market where there is an audience seeking to buy, instead of creating blight and competing with brick and mortar establishments.

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It’s good to see the Woke college and university presidents – those who refuse to condemn the skulls of mush on their campuses calling for the murder of the Jews – dropping like flies. We’ve seen pressure for Harvard University President Claudine Gay to quit regarding her answers to questions about antisemitism. University of Pennsylvania President M. Elizabeth Magill resigned last week for the same issue. And donors are calling for the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sally Kornbluth, to step aside.

It is troubling to see so many misguided college students siding with Palestinians as the Israelis only responded to the sudden and unwarranted attack launched on their land by Hamas, an Islamist militant group.

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If you want to ruin your kids, send them to a U.C. Bless our delusional college youth.

UC Merced’s student senate passed a second resolution calling for the university to divest from companies that support Israel. The resolution also asks the university to acknowledge the conflict as “genocide” even though it’s Hamas that wants to wipe Israel and Jews off the planet. It was the student government’s second resolution since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel that sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.

Passing resolutions might make the students feel better but they might as well fart into the wind. Israel was attacked. They are defending themselves. Those who don’t get should go back to their cannabis.

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Have you noticed how our society has increasingly softened the standards for bad behavior, between what’s acceptable and what’s not? What I mean is society expects us to dismiss consequences for bad behavior and poor choices.

A family member of mine works for a UC campus where one worker is allowed to show up late (we’re talking like 11 a.m.) each day and leave early and not do much in between. When complaints were made about not pulling his weight, the supervisor didn’t take his rebuke directly to the employee derelict in duty he took the coward’s way out and addressed the whole department for the actions of one. The bad behavior hasn’t changed and my relative is growing resentful for having to pick up the slack because he’s a hard worker.

We see how the Woke culture has infiltrated our elected bodies who suggest going softer on crime because, well, some folks have it rough out there and they only steal because they are in dire straits. The permissiveness only increases thievery is sanctioned and only increases. I still remember the woman who seemingly condoned her son after he was shot and killed breaking into a house to steal, saying he was just trying to make ends meet – as if there should be no consequences for breaking into a man’s house.

Another example? Okay,how about the state forcing businesses to pay fast-food workers the wages that are higher than jobs with more responsibility. This is because we don’t want anyone with low skills to face the consequences of not having skills that demand more pay.

Now there is a push to make it illegal to discriminate against fat people. Left-wing cities and states are pandering to the “anti-fattist” lobby with new legislation – and often the same ones that have tried to decriminalize drug use with disastrous consequences in terms of increased addiction rates and crime. Many fear the consequences of the flurry of new laws could be disastrous both for health and for business. They warn that weight discrimination laws could not only end up fueling obesity but open the floodgates to endless and often frivolous lawsuits against employers and businesses.

Will anti-fat discrimination laws put airlines and movie theaters at risk of a lawsuit if they fail to provide seats for rotund passengers and drive up costs for everyone else?

Joe Borelli, a Republican on New York’s City Council, is worried a new law would “empower people to sue anyone and everything,” adding that while he is overweight, “I’m not a victim. No one should feel bad for me except for my struggling shirt buttons.”

Red states have it right. The Texas Supreme Court in the 18th-fattest state, ruled in June that the morbidly obese weren’t covered by its anti-discrimination law, saying that “excessive weight is a physical characteristic, not a disability.”

If you don’t want problems in life fitting into seats or not being able to stand on the job or not being whispered about in a crowd, there is something that can be done. It’s in your power, not ours. As Autumn Gooseff, a 21-year-old living in Colorado who struggles with diabetes related weight issues, said: “I work out six days a week, do spin classes, and go hiking with friends at weekends. There’s a very big difference between those who are overweight and have a healthy lifestyle, and those who don’t care and try to find excuses or blame others.”

Let’s consider the homeless – not the families living in cars, but the ones roaming the streets who are screaming obscenities loudly into the air, taking swings at people who aren’t there, the ones defecating in the streets, taking over the parks or playing with themselves on the sides of buildings like was reported in the Tully/Standiford area of Modesto on Monday. Apparently there aren’t any consequences for burning your mind out on drugs and behaving this way; we just all have to tolerate it? Some cities are even removing public benches because they are being used for beds and thus others are deprived. Consider how many homeless camps catch on fire and it’s compassionate to allow them to be this way?

Let’s hope the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court does some good.

Let’s talk about how Democrats keep stealing away gun rights of the law abiding because we have thugs that go around misusing guns to commit crimes. Place all the consequences on the criminals, not those who never misuse them.

For God’s sake, can we get back to some common sense?

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation.  How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com