As we head into Christmas Week a lot of people are looking back over 2008, and thinking it's been a pretty tough year. Many have lost their jobs or homes. Others have battled health problems or family challenges. Or seen their dreams crumpled like so much tissue paper under the tree.

If you're looking for somebody to help you make sense of it all you might want to skip over the mainstream media. All you'll find there are a lot of people telling you how bad things are, how much worse they're going to get, how much you have to fear and who you ought to blame.

But there are other people out there who have some important things to say to us, especially now, at the end of a difficult year. They are heroes, of a sort, though they would never describe themselves that way. You won’t find them on the front page of your newspaper.  Or being interviewed on the radio.  You certainly won't see them profiled on the evening news. But they are there, speaking to us by what they do, not what they say.

One of them is a young mother who gathers Teddy Bears to give to children who must spend Christmas in the hospital. She knows how important it is for a child to have someone close by who can bring comfort and help allay all those nameless fears when mommy or daddy can't be there. She knows because she found out how important a Teddy Bear was to her own son when he was in the hospital, before he died of leukemia.

Another is a middle-aged woman who runs a ministry to inmates at the county jail. Her own children made some bad choices in life that caused a lot of pain. As a result she decided she wanted to help young women who needed a helping hand. She leads a Bible Study once a week for the inmates and helps organize support groups and mentoring programs that will assist them when they get out.

Then there is the former stockbroker. His life went haywire because of alcohol. Eventually it brought him to his knees but he was one of the lucky ones. He admitted he had a problem and entered recovery. Now, two decades later, he serves as the director of a mission for the homeless in the heart of downtown and he's never been happier. Life used to be about making money. Now it's about making a difference in other people's lives.

What do all these people have in common? They've all seen their lives go into a tailspin and been forced to walk through a valley of sadness, suffering and sorrow before coming out on the other side. Adversity did its best to destroy them but each of them looked it square in the eye and said "Move Over, I'm Coming Through." And that's what they did, not on their own, but with the help of God.

"I wanted a perfect ending," said Gilda Radner, after learning that she was seriously ill. "Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next."

None of us know what is going to happen next. All we know is that we have today. I hope, especially during this Christmas Week, that I'll remember this. I hope I'll remember to hug a lot more and find fault a lot less. To tell the people I love that I love them and tell the critical chorus in my head to go into the corner and keep its mouth shut. I hope I'll savor today and not worry about tomorrow. That I'll quit sweating the little things and instead take time to go do some little thing to bless somebody else. Because you know it really is the little things that mean so very, very much.

May you savor the little things, and our big God, throughout this coming week.

As the years go by it gets harder and harder to find a safe place to hide the Christmas gifts. You'd think with our house it would be a cinch. It's old, with lots of nooks and crannies. What's the problem? The problem is I live with the two nosiest people in the world.  My husband and son can locate a Christmas gift faster than a teenager can log on to Twitter. I'm beginning to wonder if I've got any hiding places left.

 I used to be able to hide presents under the bed. I could fit everything under there -- ski sweaters, X-boxes, sleeping bags, even a guitar. I stuffed them into pillow cases and no one ever knew. But everything got ruined the year I left Jiminy Cricket's leg hanging out of its bag. Our son discovered it and that took care of that.

For the next few years I used the den closet. It had lots of room for the big stuff since it had a shelf at the back, behind the hanging clothes. Then my husband went hunting for his gym shoes one day after Thanksgiving and found the VCR I'd bought for the den. It's probably just as well. I need the space anyway for all our other stuff, like the tennis racquets, Someday Box (you know, "Someday I'm going to make a hooked rug out of all these scraps") and the letterman's jacket my husband won't let me throw away.

The cubbyhole closet upstairs was a great place for several years. Nobody went there so I could hide almost anything. Then a Furbie went nuts one year, probably from the heat since it's located next to the fireplace, and he wouldn't shut up until our son tracked him down. Ever since then that's the first place he looks.

The guys have already discovered the broom closet and the trunk of my car. They even found the DVD of Gladiator I hid in the meat drawer of the fridge. This year they're following me everywhere I go. I'm starting to feel like a drug dealer with the FBI on my heels.

 Yeah, the washing machine. Now I know I'm safe, at least for another year.

Since this is Thanksgiving week you can be sure that once again your children will have the opportunity to hear a teacher take a pot shot at the Pilgrims. Somewhere along the line it became fashionable to teach that the colonists were such dolts they couldn't plant a kernel of corn without help. But contrary to politically correct opinion, the Pilgrims were not stupid. They were amazing. In fact, they were really cool. We would do well to make sure our kids know how cool they were, and of how much they accomplished.

It's hard now to imagine what they had to face: harsh climate, unfamiliar terrain, a scarcity of food brought on by failed crops and the influx of additional settlers. Yet they dealt with all their difficulties with fortitude and faith. They were young, daring, courageous and willing to sacrifice everything, including life itself, for the chance to practice their religion without interference from a tyrannical government. They were also willing to learn from their mistakes.

One of the little-known mistakes they made was to practice socialism. Bet you won't find that in any of your fourth grade lesson plans. What the Pilgrims discovered once they did put socialism into practice was that it didn't work. They had the sense to throw it out the window and turn instead to a capitalist system. Their decision to change was probably one of the most important reasons why America has prospered over the last two-hundred years.

The source of this information about the Pilgrim's early economic systems is the dairy of William Bradford, governor of the Pilgrim Colony. His sketch of Pilgrim life, titled "Of Plimouth Plantation," records in fascinating detail the events of the colonial experiment after the colonists arrived in Massachusetts in 1620.

According to Bradford, the community was initially operated according to a communal system. One of the primary reasons for this was that many of the colonists were concerned that everything be fair. Two big buzz-words of the day were "equality" and "need." Sound familiar? They decided they would all work together, like one big, happy family. Everyone would be on the honor system. They would work as much as they were able and take out of the common pool only what they needed. You can take a guess at how long this Kumbaya system of economics worked.

Before long things had descended into chaos. This socialist system, according to Bradford, "was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retarded much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.....young men that were most able and fit for labour did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense." By 1623, the colonists realized something had to be done.

In an effort to remedy the situation it was arranged for tracts of land to be issued to every family. They would be allowed to keep what they grew from the land and if they produced a surplus they would be allowed to barter or sell it to other residents. There would be no more freebies. Each family would be responsible for feeding itself. At last, the free market system was given its chance.

The change was immediate and startling. The new economic approach met with "very good success," according to Bradford, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” The women were just as impressed by the profit system as their mates. They "now went willingly into the field and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability.”

Before long the colonists were producing all manner of crops, implements and livestock. Surpluses became common. More settlers arrived, other colonies were formed and this capitalistic model spread all along the Eastern Seaboard. Before long the colonists were flourishing. Would that Gov. Bradford's book could be required reading for our current governors and congressmen, before they take office. It might have saved us all a lot of grief this past year.

So when we sit down at the dinner table this Thanksgiving we can thank God not only for our families and friends but for the free-market system that has given America prosperity instead of privation. We can also thank Him that the Pilgrims learned their lesson where socialism was concerned. May this generation soon do the same.