As I was Saying: The good, bad and ugly of holidays

As we exit the Thanksgiving holidays and approach the Christmas and New Year seasonal festivities I would like to share some thoughts with my fellow members of the Pica Pole.
1. I have not been a big fan of holidays ever since I ran Westward’s East Texas printing plant for 20 years and had to deal with holiday schedules. Sure — I love all the presents and food with my family. I’m not THAT much of a Grinch.
But holidays — especially Thanksgiving and Christmas — have always given me night sweats as we tried to get all the papers printed, inserted and mailed in time to make the post office’s holiday schedule. We printed 16 papers each week, which meant I got to have the pleasure of working with 16 publishers who forgot what deadlines were when November and December rolled around, and 16 postmasters during the holidays who thought they were kings and queens of their domains and wouldn’t budge an inch on delivery drop-off times. Sometimes everything went well, but most times I felt like Santa left me a lump of coal.
2. Suzanne and I have rounded up toys for children ever since we were in college at East Texas State University. That’s Pat Canty country, in case you didn’t know.
We were just married and pooooooor, but we bought stick horses and dolls and joined with the local pub across the street from the Commerce Journal in making Christmas morning a little happier for those less fortunate. The Showdown — while being a glorified pool hall/bar — had a pretty big heart when it came to kids and playing Santa.
Over the years I took that joy of giving with me to all the newspapers I have had the privilege of working and later running.
A lot of towns like Longview and Gladewater had the Marine “Toys for Tots,” but places like Overton, Grand Saline, Big Sandy, Quitman and others had us old grumpy newspaper folks. Fueled by gallons of coffee and packs of cigarettes — instead of candy canes and gumdrops — we would gather toys and get with the police departments and find out what families were down and out come Christmastime. I mean, nobody knows better than the cops who really is in need in your town.
3. And then there is the company Christmas party. How many of you folks still do that? I bet the numbers are pretty small.
At the Commerce Journal, the company Christmas party went the way of the dodo bird when our sales manager had a little too much of the holiday punch and proceeded to tell our publisher what he really thought of his management style. Gordon must have been one heck of a salesman, because he didn’t lose his job. We just lost the holiday party.
At the Gladewater Mirror I always sponsored a luncheon at the printing plant. I provided the ham and/or turkey and everyone else brought a dish. Now before you think how nice that was of me, let me add that we had this at lunchtime while printing the last-minute special sections brought to us late by those 16 previously mentioned publishers. Pressmen work better with a full belly, and no one has to leave the building and the press keeps rolling.
But one year I really was in the holiday spirit and decided to cater the whole affair. We contacted a customer who was behind on her ad bill and offered to trade out her outstanding balance for a lunch. 
She agreed and delivered quite a spread.
Everyone enjoyed the food — while still working of course — until the next day.
It turned out we all got food poisoning from this holiday feast and I found myself helping run the press, run the inserter and operate the mailer in between running yrips to the restroom. 
Needless to say, company holiday lunches in Gladewater got flushed after that.
Even though not all my holidays over the years have been fun at the newspaper — typing hundreds of Santa Letters is always a chore that brings a lot of laughs and a few tears — I do think working at a newspaper is one of the greatest presents I ever got.
Where else can you get to be one of Santa’s elves, make a child smile and  make a difference in your community? You, my friends, know that answer as well as I do … even in the hard times.
Merriest of Christmases and Happy New Year to all my TPA Pica Pole Family members.