Author: Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

A writer most of my life. A retired purchasing manager that has worked in sales, management, food service, pet supplies, manufacturing, and many other areas. A born-again believer in The Lord Jesus Christ who attempts to be more like Him every day. Fiction selections are bylined Chuck and non-fiction bears my given name of Charles. Enjoy what God allows me to create.

Christmas means Santa

December 6, 2025

I have been researching the mythology of Christmas for years. When we had our first child, I told my wife that I did not want to perpetuate the falsehoods about Saint Nicholas. My thinking was that if we intentionally told them lies, they would not believe in God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. She disagreed with me, and guess what? We did it her way.

We repeat the stories that we have heard. Nicholas made and delivered toys to the local children in his village. His parents’ wealth enabled him to do this. Often, he left the gifts outside the doors of their homes. The British have Father Christmas, that is the personification of love. He was more focused on adults than children when the legends began.

When the story of Santa Claus came to the United States, Father Christmas was changed. The name came from the Dutch Sinterklaas, and in Pennsylvania, we got the name Kris Kringle in the 1800s. Because of the melting pot of our culture, we have a varied tradition of celebrations this time of year.

You may have Hanukkah, Kwanza, Saturnalia, or other holy days that are part of your traditions. That is what freedom of religion in our Constitution guarantees. As Burger King says, have it your way.

Christmas music and movies are things I have discussed in previous columns. I don’t care what holidays you want to celebrate. The way you serve others on your high holy days is your business. Human sacrifices and property destruction are some of the areas where I think the line needs to be drawn.

Years ago, one of my seventh and eighth boys told me that he and a friend had bashed pumpkins on Halloween. I asked how he would have felt if young men like him had destroyed his decorations when he was younger. He looked like he understood what I meant.

Another student showed me the hood ornament that he had broken off a car the day before. I asked him if he knew how much it would cost to replace it. Of course, he did not know. I informed him of what I had been told by a friend that it cost him to replace one, and he seemed surprised. My point to him was that it was a joke. He would not want to cause that expense for his parents.

We make fun of how others worship, play, sing, or do just about anything. Not everyone who does these things intends to hurt others. They may just not think it through thoroughly. The historical St. Nicholas attempted to improve the lives of children and their families.

I hope that you try to be a good Saint Nick all year round. Finding ways to serve others is appropriate at any time of the year. He is not a mythical figure. He was a real man who tried to make a difference. Let us all see if we can be more like he was.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

A Christmas to remember

December 4, 2025

It’s the holiday season.  Halloween and Thanksgiving are over.  Thoughts go to Mom and Dad and times long gone.  Gone, but not forgotten.  Growing up in Springfield, MO, was great.  Life was easy for a child.  Not so much for parents.  Kids could be kids.  Television was available, but not a necessity for the young.  Not yet, anyway.

Toys in the nineteen-sixties were exploding.  Improvements in batteries have enabled mechanical and electronic devices to surpass those powered by wind or hand. I remember those, though. Vanessa had the monkey that banged on the cymbals. Someone had a bank shaped like a firetruck that was a bank.

The Sears and other catalogs brought never-before-seen toys to the home.  The method chosen for allowing parents to determine what to buy was to circle the item in a catalog.  Because there were four children, each put their initials inside the circle.  If a brother or sister had already circled and marked an item, all one had to do was include another set of initials.

Later, Mom or Dad would review the selections and their prices and place the order for the gifts.  One particular year, a helicopter was one of the choices.  There was a cargo door that opened. Accessories that could be lifted in and out of the fuselage by a battery-operated crane.  Lights flashed, and while the propeller did not turn, it made a noise that sounded like it was.

The other things marked that year are long forgotten. When the boxes were opened, that was the gift.  There was a problem.  The cargo door hinges were broken.  The door could not be closed.  It just fell off.  No one was on the phone on Christmas Day.  The toy was played with carefully.  Everything else was inspected, and the next business day, a phone call was made.

The damaged item was placed back in its box and set aside until it could be returned and a new one sent.  The call was a disappointment.  None of the helicopters were left.  All had been sold.  It could be returned, and some other items shipped to replace it.

All that was broken was a hinge on the plastic door.  A metal pin was found in the junk drawer that could replace the plastic that broke.  The tip of an ice pick was heated, and a hole was made.  The pin was inserted and carefully glued in place.  It lasted longer than the electrical part of the helicopter.

A few years later, when the toy was thrown away, the door hinge still worked.  The lights could no longer be lit.  The winch had stopped working.  The propeller blades had been snapped and repaired more times than could be remembered.  The repaired hinge still worked fine.  The final accident was a crash from a stairway landing that caved in the opposite side of the fuselage.  New toys had been received, and it was not necessary to try to fix them this time.

Sometimes toys are never forgotten, even if their names are not Buzz and Woody.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Prelude to a civil war

December 2, 2025

John Nickle from Facebook

This is what the prelude to a civil war looks like:

With its southern-dominated Democratic majority, the Senate approved the admission of Kansas as a slave state on March 23, 1858. In the House, the administration could count on at least half of the northern Democrats, as in 1854. But this time, that was not enough to win the battle.

“Battle” was not too strong a word for events in the House. On one occasion during an all-night session, Republican Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania walked over to the Democratic side to confer with a few northern Democrats. Lawrence Keitt of South Carolina shouted at him: “Go back to your side of the House, you Black Republican puppy!”

Replying with a sneering remark about slave drivers, Grow grappled with Keitt and knocked him down. Congressmen from both sides rushed into the melee. “There were some fifty middle-aged and elderly gentlemen pitching into each other like so many Tipperary savages,” wrote a reporter describing this 2:00 a.m. free-for-all, “most of them incapable, from want of wind and muscle, of doing each other any serious harm.”

But Alexander Stephens believed that “if any weapons had been on hand, it would probably have been a bloody one. All things here are tending my mind to the conclusion that the Union cannot and will not last long.”

My point of view:

This is history. It is politics at its worst. It is how division of thinking can be allowed to become outright violence, even among what are considered normally civilized people. These are the reasons the South seceded from the Union. Don’t say that this will not happen today.

This is exactly the type of split that has been happening in Congress over the argument about closing and then reopening the Federal Government. Are you smart enough to see that the separation into political parties just adds fuel to this type of blaze? When we take sides without weighing the pros and cons of an argument, we fail to have the opportunity for compromise.

Compromise is what businesses and governments are built on. Agreeing to disagree and get on with what needs to be done is what made companies grow and America great. America will not be great if our representatives cannot solve their own differences.

We are only as great as our weakest link, and at this moment, it seems to be our elected officials. When we vote next August and November, we need to ensure that the candidates we support can set aside petty partisan differences and get their jobs done. I believe the only way to do this is to elect non-partisan candidates.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

The Devil’s gonna try

November 30, 2025

This is what he did with me. When I graduated from high school, Immanuel Baptist Church forced Pastor Hamilton to resign. I quit going to church. I went to a couple of other churches with friends, but I saw the same things there. Hypocrisy and people who thought they were always correct.

Today I know the word for that. Dogmatism is “the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others.” To me, it means that their opinion is right no matter what.

The video I hope you just viewed says “the devil’s gonna try to get me outa that church, cause he can’t get the church outa me.” Anne Wilson, in her “Sunday Sermons” song, wants us to realize that Satan wants to separate us from Christ.

He uses whoever he can to do this. They may be church people. It might even be your parents or best friends. He will use anyone that he can to make you doubt that Jesus loves you and will keep His promises. Satan has come to kill and destroy us and the church.

Remember how he tempted Jesus after His baptism? Even Simon, who was called the Rock or Peter, told Jesus that the prophecy of His death would not happen. This was when the famous saying, “Get behind me Satan,” was first used. Try not to be like Peter in this regard.

I’ve been trying to think of any time that I might have been used to lead others away from what the Lord was calling them to do. If I have done that to you, I am sorry. If you can, let me know what it was that I said or did that discouraged you from following Christ.

Following Him is not always easy. It is the best thing that you can do. Not everyone will understand your decisions. Often, I cannot explain things I do except by saying, “God told me to do that.” I know that many use this excuse to try to keep from accepting the consequences of their actions.

That is not what I want to do. If my words or opinions offend you, I would ask you to talk to God about it. You don’t believe there is a God and reject the idea of a man named Jesus being the Savior of all people. I can understand why what I write and say makes no sense to you.

If I did not believe in gravity, I would still wonder why things fall. If I did not believe in love, I would wonder how two different people can live together for fifty or more years. If I didn’t believe in electricity, I’d be typing this on a manual typewriter.

Without a belief in these things that most of us have proof that they exist, life would be more confusing and dangerous. We cannot provide you with proof that Jehovah exists and that Jesus rose from the dead and lives today. I can only ask you to do what I did. Ask Him to prove to you that He is real. He did it for me. But be ready. The proof is overwhelming.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Green Monday

November 28, 2025

We have progressed from Thanksgiving to Black Friday. Then on to buy local Saturday, and Cyber Monday, followed by Giving Tuesday. When I started writing this morning, I saw that today is Green Monday. Where did all of this begin?

Go back with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear. I first learned of Black Friday in the 1980s when my wife and I had three young children. Did it exist before then? Not in Springfield, Missouri. I think Wal-Mart brought it here. The first year or two, my wife went by herself or did her shopping before 7:30 AM.

My job required some of us to be in the office on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We alternated. Those who had to work after Thanksgiving were given Christmas Eve off. It worked well and meant I only had to go Black Friday shopping every other year. We eventually stopped working on that Friday, and I became a full-time Black Friday aficionado.ame Black Friday come from? Supposedly, this was the day when businesses that struggled all year would make enough sales to cover what they had lost. My experience in business is that if you go from January to the end of November without a profit, you are out of business. The journalists who invented the term Black Friday did not think this through.

Local Saturday came a few years ago after Cyber Monday. Monday was the day the online companies had their big discounts. Now every day is Cyber Day for some internet retailers. For others, any day is a day to con you out of your hard-earned money.

We should all buy local and not just on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Local retailers are the main reason you have a grocery or hardware store in your community. Avoid Wal-Mart and check out these local shops as often as you can. I will give you some of my favorites in days to come.

Now back to the present and Giving Tuesday. We have all spent all our money on Thanksgiving dinner and Friday, Saturday, and Monday shopping. How does anyone expect us to give money on Tuesday? We should be given at least one to two weeks to receive our next paycheck. For us seniors, it will be later this month when the social insecurity checks arrive.

What can we do about this? For this year, set aside five percent or more of your next paychecks. If it isn’t very much, do not worry. Every little bit helps. Select one charity each check or one for the final weeks of 2025. Do your part.

For next year’s budget, that’s five percent from each pay period. Determine now who deserves it. Do the research. Your first contribution should be given to your local church or place of worship. I suggest five percent. A tithe is ten percent to the church. If you can’t spare five percent of each check, give a couple of bucks.

Help those whom you can, and do not forget that giving begins at home. If you have no extra money because you are helping parents, children, siblings, or someone else that you know personally, do not worry. You can always donate time to the organizations that you want to support. Giving is not only monetary.

What about this Green Monday? It seems to have been created by eBay. Another chance for the cyber shoppers. It is a day when you purchase used products. If these are for others, I suggest looking around the house for regifting options. Beware of whom you select for these items. You might want to ask, “Do you remember when you gave me ___.”

Some local brick-and-mortar stores are getting in on the hype. Remember to watch your budget. Whatever happened to Taco Tuesday? Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Joyful Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger