Opinion

To the Editor, In direct response to last week's St.

It was the week before Christmas and at the Nouvelle, There wasn't a sound, not a whisper or yell, Reporters were busy, writing columns with flair, While production was really too busy to care.

I had a serious case of the Grinches this past week. Christmas had boiled down to nothing more than an endless stream of stress and work and shopping and work and budgeting and more work and I was done with all of it. My car was getting on my nerves.

I have these childhood memories of Christmas time, ones like playing on the snowy hill near my grandma's old farmhouse in Saskatchewan with all the cousins, while the parents slaved away in the kitchen – tasting wide varieties of wine.

The MD of Bonnyville set a good example for neighouring municipalities at its town hall a couple miles across the County of St. Paul border on Dec. 13. (For story, see page 18).

County of St. Paul council heard not once, but twice, the request for cash for building repairs from the St. Paul Childcare Society at its meeting on Dec. 13. (For story, see page 23).

To the Editor, Our federal government in Ottawa has taken a couple steps in recent days that should make us proud to be Canadians.

Why have so many municipalities, the Town and County of St. Paul included, felt compelled to fork over thousands of dollars in donations to the governing party? The Town forked over $3,775 since 2005, the County forked over $2,245 since 2004.

Despite young lives being lost, increased penalties that are now amongst the toughest in the world and massive public awareness, the message about the perils of drinking and driving appear to be falling on deaf ears in and around Bonnyville.

Until my grandfather died when I was 13, my grandmother's house at Christmas time was stuffed more fully than a Christmas dinner turkey with hundreds of tacky, horrific, and amazing ornaments, tinsel, singing lights, Victorian villages, glowing reind