While I have another editorial ready for posting, I think it is more important to send a message of peace for the holiday season. While we have concerns about the manner in which we are governed and the fiscal survivability of our little town, we are at the same time blessed with the benefits of its small-town characteristics and natural resources.
For you see we in New Smyrna Beach have the great fortune to live in a climate that lets us use those natural resources on a year-round basis and thus can enjoy both our beach and Intra-Coastal Waterway at our leisure. Many other people in our great nation make long trips from their homes far away just to experience the same pleasures.
We are also blessed in our day to day freedom, that we sometimes take for granted. In doing so we sometimes forget that it is protected and insured by Americans serving in our armed forces who will be spending this holiday season in danger all over the world.
Some of those fine men and women will give up their lives and thus their freedom to ensure that we have ours. Some may actually die on the day we celebrate the birth of the person Christians call the Prince of Peace.
It is their gift to us as it was for some of our colleagues in the distant past of our experience and as it was for people we never knew ages ago. It is a collective treasure we have as Americans that we will make that ultimate sacrifice in order to protect our fellow Americans and their right to freedom.
For you see despite the wonders we experience in our little town, the most important resource we have as Americans is our right to freedom. And it remains something that people all over the world envy and strive to attain.
So in this season of peace, when we give thanks in our individual ways, open the presents under the tree, or have dinner with our families, we must also remember their sacrifices and the sacrifices of those who went before them. We must make an effort to remember them in our hearts and prayers as we spend time together during the season.
For you see the true meaning of the season of peace is everything that is around us, town, nature, people, country, family, but most of all freedom.
May God bless each and every one of my fellow New Smyrna Beach residents, friend and political foe alike, while you experience and enjoy this marvelous season of peace we call Christmas.