Logan’s Runis a sci-fi movie made in 1976 in which the survivors of the classic doomsday trinity of overpopulation/war/pollution have been forced to live a sheltered life inside a massive domed City. Essentially the plot breaks down as this:

            You live a life of no labor. All work and essential goods are provided by the city. You are “born” with having no link to your mother or father, and in your left palm is an implanted crystal which tells your life stages. As you grow older, the crystal changes color, with red being the final color. Once you reach the age of 30, you are required to enter Carousel which brings about your death (or Lastday).

            Every now and then someone refuses to enter Carousel and they choose to flee for their lives. These people are known as Runners, and they are hunted down by the police force known as Sandmen. Logan 5 is such as Sandman, but is ordered by the City computer to infiltrate, locate and report the location of the Runner’s hideout known as Sanctuary.

            Logan 5 meets a young woman named Jessica 6 who intends to run. He befriends her and together they flee from the city. Logan’s friend and fellow Sandman, Francis 7, hunts down both of them as they enter Outside. While running, Logan and Jessica fall in love, discover what remains of Washington D.C., kill Francis, meet Old Man, and return to the City with the news that one doesn’t have to die. The City is destroyed and at the very end the population goes Outside and life is forever changed.

            Logan’s Run isn’t a great film per say, but the message of the movie was intended as a rebuke of the Free Love movement of the 60s and 70s. During the early stages of the movie, sex and drug-induced pleasure are the only motivational factors in living. There is no work, no creativity, and no moral standards of any kind, other than that of forced death at the age of 30. (The picked age of 30 is no accident, as it is the direct result of Abby Hoffman’s famous “trust no one over the age of 30” mantra.) Having no parental guidance for the citizens is also a clear shot at the cultural norm of the time.

            Once Logan and Jessica are free from the confines of the City, their crystals turn clear. Obviously the clear crystal indicates a clean slate in which to run their lives, but it also indicates the rejection of the use of crystals in New Age movement during that period of American culture. When they meet Old Man living alone with his cats in the ruined Capital Building and talk with him about having parents and marriage, they come to understand and prefer the traditional way of living. As they are making their way back to the City to free the other inhabitants, they undertake crude wedding vows and become husband and wife.

            Imagery plays an important role in this film as well. The survivors live in a confined area known as City, while true freedom can only be found Outside among the wilderness. Freedom is often confused as being able to do whatever one wants whenever they want it, but that is nothing but slavery, according to the film. American history is full of people moving westward away from the cities and towards places where they can breathe fresh air and live according to their own desires.

            Another important image is the use of color. As your birth crystal changes color, so does the clothing you wear. The two final stages, indicated by the colors green and red, are used throughout literature. Green often indicates life, and here it is the last color before one turns red, which is the death stage. Red is the color of blood, and one must give up ones’ own life in the form of a ritual sacrifice to ensure the stability of life. The City itself, while a perfect environment, is cold, sterile and lifeless. In fact, the only colors are made by the humans as they walk about in their daily activities, their clothing letting everyone know how much life they have left. The Sandmen are dressed in black, which is of course the color of death.

            At the end of the film, Logan 5 is captured and taken before the nameless computer which runs the City. As the computer is trying to extract the location of Sanctuary (a term itself which carries religious significance) from the mind of Logan 5, his virtual image is displayed upon the screens surrounding the interrogation chamber. The image is not one of a red Logan 5, but a face containing the colors red and green. This indicates the bond between Logan and Jessica that was formed once their journey began and became real only in the Outside.

            The author of the book and the makers of the film seem to indicate that all play and no work makes Jack 3 a dull boy. It also leads to death and a life so self-centered and so self-serving that living past the age of 30 holds no value. Clearly, the film makers say, there is so much more to life than self gratification.

My hands started to go numb within my first month of beating in seat backs on the old ’85 Accord. I lost 20 pounds that first month at a time in my life when I didn’t have 20 pounds to spare. I spent 8 months on nights even though I had been assured by my initial trainer that I would never see day shift, and in those 8 months I began to grow up.

I learned discipline and routine and how to both save and spend real money that I had earned. I went to days and put on fuel tanks all day every day for an entire year. I struggled mightily to learn how to hook up those three little fuel lines on the LxI model, and felt for certain that I was going to be fired. Honda didn’t fire me (even though some of the people in my area wished that they had), I got married and I made it.

I went to weld shop where I learned how to mig weld. I came home to my wife and little kids covered in oil and black sealer and all of the pain associated with factory work was worth it when they greeted me at the door with hugs and kisses and I was made to feel like a conquering hero who finally made it back to what he was fighting for.

The years rolled along and the 20 pounds I lost putting in rear seats found their way back to my body and they brought along a few extra friends. My bald spot became a hair spot and then I just started to shave the little last reminder of my youth. My kids grew up and my marriage grew stronger. As I trudged into that plant day-after-day, week-after-week, year-after-year, I found myself despairing.

No one wants to work an assembly line. No one wants to breath in sealer smoke or have red-hot globs of steel run down their arms, leaving little scars that crisscross their skin. No one wants to unload a full trailer at breathtaking speed because weld is running at an insane pace. No one wants to give up their Saturdays or have hands that go numb. No one wants to feel so old and beaten up when they are just 30.

And yet I wouldn’t trade all of that effort for anything. If nothing else, Honda played a huge role in turning me into a man. It allowed me to provide for my family so that my wife could stay home and have her dream job of being a mother. It provided material items for my kid that neither my wife or I had growing up.

And with all of the pain and misery came stories I will have with me till I die. Recently I became part of the New Model team for weld shop. Our small group is working on perfecting the brand new ’13 Accord (which is spectacular) and we are also training weld associates the new job processes. This will last about 18 months, and it will require a ton of overtime. It also allows for me to see and talk with people I haven’t visited for a while.

We all share war stories about how bad certain jobs used to be and we share laughs about the time so and so did whatever. I have grown up with these people and many of them have become my work family. Some of them I have considered close friends. And like a family, we fight and we bicker but in the end we all share in the same humanity that is Honda.

Sometimes as I am training, I will be working with someone I don’t know, yet we have common acquaintances throughout the plant. We just missed working together by a few weeks, or we had the same pain-in-the-ass coordinator. We ate the same cheap pizza on Friday and drank the same lousy coffee from the machines. We have the same bad feet, backs or hands.

And in this we have built a camaraderie that is unique. It is like the bonds created in war or on a sports team. We were kids who were taken from high school and thrown into the middle of a multi-billion dollar manufacturing plant and told to build cars. Guys in the mid 20s (old men to us) who had been farmers their entire lives were given command over us and sometimes we listened and sometimes we made fun.

And through it all I made friendships and memories that run much deeper than my scars or aches. I raised my kids. I loved my wife. I lived and I loved and I grew up. And that job that, three days into it, I was convinced would drive me insane with unending routine, has become my routine. Honda doesn’t define me but it has helped shape me.

So if you own an Accord or Acura TL or an RDX, think of all the boys and girls who became men and women in that massive plant known as MAP. And when you think of us, feel neither sorrow or pity for our lives are so much more than that of a common laborer.

This year contained a major accomplishement for me as I published my first book. True, it was self-published, and yes it is an e-book, but still I finished something. I worked on that book for about two years and at times wondered if I would ever (or should ever) complete it, but I did. It hasn’t sold very well, but everyone who has read it has commented on how it made them both laugh and cry and how it helped them to remember some of the wacky stuff that happened to them in their childhood.  It may never become a block-buster movie or top the charts as a best-seller, but it is mine and I am proud that I got it done.

2011 also was the year of standing around at Honda. When the earthquake/tsunami hit Japan last March, the effects were felt all the way over in central Ohio. By mid-April we were building less cars and throughout the summer, production was almost non-existent. Instead of laying us off, Honda allowed us to come in and either clean or receive additional training. The days were often miserably long and boring, but I was still making a paycheck.

I like to think that I grew as a person, a husband and as a father during the year, but I still lug around that extra 50 pounds I need to lose. My wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary by getting that really nice deck we always wanted. I promised Kelly that our 25th would be celebrated in Europe or somewhere tropical, but we both wanted a place to relax and use throughout the year so a deck it was. My daughter finished another year at art school, Eric went off for Christian training in Kansas City and Drew began his final year of public education.

So what do I want for the coming year? It will be difficult to get much writing done since I will be putting in so many hours at Honda. I want to eat healthier, lose weight and exercise more, but that has been my goal for several years now. I want to love better and extend mercy more. I want that special trip that my wife and I keep putting off. I want to expand my creative talents into that of video production. I want to launch a rocket more than once before it becomes a victim of a tall tree. I want to read more, laugh more and not force a smile.

But mostly I want to be less of who I “really am” and become more like what He is. I want to become less of the jesterand more of the guy with a genuine love for people. I want to be loved and not just liked. I want to learn to listen and not just for ammunition or to discover a chink in your argument so that I can prove my point, but because you have something valid to say and I might learn a thing or two. I want less to do with a church building and more to do the church outside the walls. I want you to be able to watch what I do instead of what I say. “Putting shoes on the Gospel,” they used to call it.

So here is to 2012. And may the Myans be horribly wrong in their calculations.

We are a family of Santa believers. We raised our kids to know that unless they go to sleep on Christmas Eve, Santa will pass them by. I understand that some parents don’t teach their children about Santa because they say that he isn’t real and that they don’t want to lie to their kids. That is fine, but I think I feel more sad for those parents than the children. Magic is a wonderful thing, is it not?

Alas, life has a knack for beating the magic from us, and children slowly learn that parents are the one who place the gifts under the tree. They want to believe, but logic and getting older strips them of that ability. Then one day they become firmly ensconced in the No Santa Camp and Christmas is changed forever.

Because of that evil thing we call time, our children became older and slowly the doubt began to creep in. Eric even once openly suggested that we are the purchaser of said Christmas gifts. Kelly and I knew that time was closing the final curtain on Santa in our house, and we came to deal with it.

One Christmas eve, when they were about the ages of 11, 9 and 7, we knew the belief was gone. Drew was still pretty little, but his brother and sister had convinced him that Santa was mere myth. That night, as they were all in bed and the gifts were put under the tree, Kelly and I had a decision to make. We knew the belief was gone, that the magic had run its course, and we also knew it was time. Kelly got out the little plate we bought for Santa and his cookies and we put it out on the table. I then wrote this little note from Santa to our children. And it went like this…

“Dear Sarah, Eric and Drew,

I have watched you over the years and I know well your sleepless nights on Christmas Eve. You have been good children, and while this will be my last visit for a while, someday I will return and I will become real once more through the eyes of your children. Thank you for the cookies and I look forward to the day when once again I am invited to land upon your rooftop.

Love, Santa.”

My wife and I held each other and cried. It was an end of an era, it was another small step towards the time when our kids would become adults and start their own families. There, bathed in the glow of our Christmas tree, we understood that letter was more for us than for out children. It was a philosophy they couldn’t learn because they couldn’t understand it, but it was all too real for us.

For me and my wife, Santa is real. He is made real when love is spread and when children, almost besides themselves with anticipation, come bounding down steps to see what lies for them under the tree. He is real when their eyes light up with unspeakable joy when that perfect gift is revealed. Someday, when my grand-children are little, Santa will visit them and make their Christmas Eve a miserable event as they desperately try to sleep.

And in that moment, my kids will finally learn the meaning of that letter because they will finally understand.

Merry Christmas, and may you always look into the night sky to see if you can spot a sled whizzing through the dark, and may you always hear the jingle of a Christmas bell in your heart.

Many of us go through life playing the role of Scrooge. We are tight-fisted not just with our money, but with our time, our talents and our love. I have fallen into that role every so often and right now I am so stingy with my time that I can hear the chains of Marley outside my bedroom door. Pray for me in that regard.

But some people around the country are the Scrooge of Christmas morning. It seems a rash of kindness and generosity has broken out at various K-Mart locations as lay-away purchases are being paid off by strangers. In Omaha, a young father wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots had his children’s Christmas gifts paid for by a total stranger. In Indianapolis, a woman paid for the purchases of 50 customers, then handed out $50 bills as she left the store.

The list goes on and on as we are reminded that not everyone with money is a greedy miser, and that it doesn’t take much to bring happiness. Sometimes the work begun in a dirty manger is continued with a simple act of kindness and mercy and love. Sometimes we stop and remember that it’s not about us. Sometimes the mind of humanity reaches out and touches the heart of God and the two become one.

For four decades, K-Mart has maintained the practice of providing lay-away for people on tight budgets. K-Mart makes no additional profit from their policy, but people can afford to buy items they need all year long. So a big thumbs-up to the K for helping kids have gifts under their trees and for helping parents feel like parents.

And don’t be surprised if you see a guy that looks a lot like a grown-up Charlie Brown giving a little bit more of himself.

It’s not easy to take a simple song and turn it into an half-hour animated special. True, most of the plot is given within the lyrics, but adding the evil magician who is willing to melt a walking, talking snowman was (pun intended) bone chilling. As a child, didn’t you just hate that guy? And didn’t you cry when Frosty melted inside the hot house? And didn’t you feel bad for taking frozen dog poop and replacing the coal on your neighbor’s snowman?

6. Elf

This will probably move up the list as it gets older and becomes more of a classic, but Elf represents a rarity in Hollywood: a funny Will Ferrell movie. I love how the writer put in the scene at the beginning where Papa Elf and Buddy are discussing how there is no way that parents could organize gift giving on Christmas Eve, thus allowing a child or two one more season of magic. Zooey Deschanel is adorable, and Buddy yelling out “not now, Arctic Puffin!” is a family favorite.

5. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Again, another song turned into a timeless classic. RRR is stretched into an hour-long special which involves complicated themes intended more for adults than children. Aren’t we all misfits? Don’t we all, at times, want to run away to someplace where we will be accepted? Burl Ives was perfect as the minstrel snowman and Rudolph, with his imperfections and failings, manages to save the day. And yes, I will play with a Charlie-in-the box.

4.  A Christmas Story

This movie is full of iconic Christmas images. From the frozen tongue on the metal pole to the snowsuit which didn’t allow for the movement of appendages to the Italian glowing sex leg lamp to the shooting out of one’s own eye, this one has given us smiles because it is so much like real life. We all had that one amazing gift that we had to have! We’ve all had bullies in our lives, we all had flat tires on the side of the road and we have all, at one time or another, given up and just ordered Chinese food. Well done Ralphie.

3. Christmas Vacation

For the longest time I didn’t like this movie. I used to think that it was because Rusty was now younger than Audrey. I used to think it was the opening scene with the car driving under the truck was dumb. But then I embraced my inner Clark and realized I am he. I love this movie because I can relate to trying to have that perfect Christmas for everyone, all the while bungling everything and making people around me miserable. Clark is the goof we all love to love and cousin Eddie was an excellent addition to the film. Our families are not perfect. Gatherings are often miserable. But we make it and are better for it. Plus, every male wants to have his exterior illumination make the local power company have to kick on the nuclear auxiliary.

2.  The Santa Clause

What a fantastic concept. Tim Allen knocks out Santa, dons the suit and ends up becoming Santa himself. He doesn’t want the job, but comes to understand that the world still needs magic. The character changes, both physically and mentally, as he grows to not only accept his new role but to embrace it. It is about adults who no longer believe because life is just too harsh for unconditional love to exist. And sometimes all it takes to believe once again is that weeny whistle or that Mystery Game to come floating out of the sky. Seriously, I don’t want to live in a world where Santa can no longer exist.

1. Charlie Brown Christmas Special

Maybe it’s because it has been around my entire life. (I was about a week or two old when it first aired.) Maybe it’s because I look like a grown Charlie Brown. Maybe it’s because Lucy gets right down to it with her demand for real estate. But maybe, just maybe, it’s because Linus can still recite Scripture on national television and no one makes fun of it. Somehow Schultz took his deep faith and put it into a cultural iconic comic strip and was never mocked for it. Instead of hiding within the soft ranks of Christian media, Schultz entered the real world and proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a massive audience. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause, and he humbly bows before a baby in a manger. And thank you Charles Schultz, for doing your part to never let us forget what Christmas is really all about.

9.  ”All I Want for Christmas is a Colonoscopy.”

8. “(I’m Dreaming of a) White Power Christmas.”

7.  Anything sang by Justin Bieber.

6. “Slay Bells” (it’s Death Metal)

5. “Frosty’s Awkward Yellow Stain.”

4. “12 Days of Foreclosure.”

3. Getting kicked in the groin. This has nothing to do with Christmas, nor is it even a song, but I really dislike it when it happens to me.

3. “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Gingrich.” (Bill Clinton, circa 1998)

2. The Quiet Riot remake of “Santa Claus is Cumming to Town.”

1. Jerry Sandusky singing “Little Drummer Boy.”

…but I despise Christmas Eve. It is the single worse night of the entire year. It is endless torture and should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention. I suppose that  giving children a big dose of benadryl would be considered risky, but I can’t think of a single kid that wouldn’t have given anything to have peacefully slept through the 24 hours prior to Christmas morning.

When I was little the Eve was horrible. You woke up knowing that an entire day was going to be dedicated to the endless waiting for Santa to come. You went downstairs, ate some breakfast and then did nothing. Every now and then you would stare at the tree, hoping that some Christmas miracle would happen and time would suddenly speed up.

But it never did and you were always stuck.

That night, as you were sent to bed, you braced yourself for the ultimate torture: Santa’s visit. Don’t get me wrong…Santa breaking into your home and dropping off some gifts is the greatest thing in all of childhood. It’s just that he wouldn’t come unless you were asleep, and every SINGLE Christmas Eve I was about as sleepy as a druggie hopped up on crystal meth and energy drinks.

I would just lay there and lay there and try to fall asleep, but it was nearly impossible. I waited to hear the jingle of sleigh bells, but Santa would just hover above our house until I passed out. All of the anxiety of unknown gifts, coupled with the peer pressure of delaying Santa’s visit due to my consciousness was making me more awake, not less! If only someone would have come in and applied a big stone to my head and ended this misery!

And it’s not any better when you become a parent. trust me, the only thing better than waiting on Santa is having your kids waiting on Santa. I think I actually enjoyed Christmas morning more than my kids. But besides all of my new-found anxiousness, there was now the factor of forcing my children to try to fall asleep.

After they actually fell asleep (around 3 am) my wife and I then spent the next hour wrapping their gifts and carefully arranging them under the tree. Tree arrangement is vital for a sane Christmas morning because there has to be a harmonious mix of gift opening to avoid the “hey, it’s my turn!” argument. And then, finally, the tree is ready and all we have to do is wait for them to wake up.

Which happened about 30 minutes after we went to bed. So groggy and bleary-eyed, my wife and I would arise from our bed to see if Santa had come yet. We would look at the tree, all glowing in the living room, and realize that we were blessed beyond measure. We would then announce to our little bundles of joy that Santa had indeed picked our locks and left some gifts under the tree. They would then bound down the stairs, safety be damned, and would spend the rest of the morning opening and playing with various toys.

The rest of the day was awesome, with some sleep being granted to the parents while the kids enjoyed the presents. There was Christmas dinner and friends/family coming over, but there still lingered that dark cloud over my head, letting me know that in just 364 short days it would be Christmas Eve once again.

The one we picked was almost entirely pink, with little pink shutters and a pink roof that was made to look like pink slate tiles. It was a two story home with enough furniture and do-dads to keep any girl happy with endless hours of imaginative play.

However it was also a dad’s nightmare, for it came in a box we could barely fit into our car. Even though I was a young father I had enough Christmases under my belt to know a construction headache when I saw it. The box said that it could be put together in under an hour with no problems. Since I was not stupid, I doubled the hour and even added in a few extra minutes to allow for my wife to correct how I was doing it all wrong.

The days came and went and soon enough Christmas Eve was upon us. Sarah and Eric were asleep in their beds as I lugged the box from our bedroom to the kitchen table. My wife, my mother-in-law and I put all of the parts on the kitchen floor and then began the long process of assembling the dollhouse. We were most of the way through it when I heard the kitchen door behind me gently swing open.

There, in her pajamas and long curly red hair, was  Miss Sarah. “My dollhouse!” she exclaimed in her little girl voice. My wife, channeling her inner Grinch, thought up a lie and she thought it up quick. “Oh honey,” she told Sarah, “this is a dollhouse that we bought for a poor girl that lives down the street. Santa is bringing your dollhouse.”

“Oh,” is all she said as we put her back up into her bed. How sweet and innocent and trusting is the mind of a child. There was no asking why Santa  didn’t bring the other girl a dollhouse; there was simply accepting the answer given her. We went downstairs and finished the project, turned out the lights and went to sleep.

The next morning Sarah and Eric came running downstairs to see what waited for them under the tree. When it came time to unwrap the dollhouse, Sarah tore off the wrapping from the top of the gift and her eyes grew wide.

“My dollhouse!” she said once again, “and it’s just like the one the poor girl got!” My wife and I smiled at one another as we realized the magic would continue for at least another season.

Sarah played with that house for a number of years, but like all things from our childhoods, she outgrew it one day. We donated the house to someone and walked away knowing that another girl would spend many an hour playing with her toys in a world of her own making.

It is the wonderment in a child’s eyes as they round the corner at 5 am and see the tree on Christmas morning. It is about finding that special gift for that special someone. It’s about a gentle snow falling on your face as you gaze up into the night sky and look at the stars. It’s cookies and fudge and making gingerbread men with Grandma.

Even in the midst of long lines and stress and spending more than you should, Christmas is joyful. People will gather in groups on cold evenings for no reason other than to sing carols in their neighborhood. People with limited time give up that precious gift to help others. Kindness and happiness isn’t limited to December but it certainly is amplified.

New Year’s Eve is about looking ahead but Christmas is the time of gathering. It lets you know why another year is vital and it lets you catch your breath as you recall why life is so great. It is family and it is love and I never want to become so old that I stop seeing that young boy staring back at me in the reflection of ornaments.

This month I am going to dedicate my blog to Christmas. It may be a retelling of a family event or it may be a news story, but they will all be about Christmas. So if you are a Scrooge or a Grinch don’t bother coming here for a while.

Unless you find out that it is never too late to love or if your heart suddenly grows three sizes.