Among the many preparations and joys of Christmas is the writing and receiving of Christmas cards.

With all the hustle and bustle of daily living we so often neglect to keep in touch with friends and relatives. Christmas is a time to renew these friendships.

We learn of the new grandchildren, the weddings, the holiday trips, the hopes for the future of our friends. Some times the news is not as sweet--the loss of a loved one, a serious illness, a divorce or a lost job.

The first card this year was from Brent and Eddy Logan. Brent established Logan Chev Olds when he was in Yorkton in the premises now occupied by Key Chev Olds. The Logans are looking forward to golfing in the sunny south.

Had an email from Alexandra Sellers, who now lives in England. She attended grade six at Simpson School in 1958-59. One of her classmates was John Ridsdel and her teacher was Glen Sorestad, who now lives in Saskatoon and is Saskatchewan 's poet laureate.

She said the treasured class photo of 40 years ago, with all the names on the back, was thrown out by mistake several years ago.

She is now a writer and would like to hear from any of her grade 6 classmates. Her web site is www.alexandrasellers.com.

Lianne Britnall, the former Lianne Litowitz, sent a picture of her new son Connor. Lianne and her husband Andrew live in Vancouver.

Candi (Hart) McLean tells about being on an American airplane, flying out of an American airport, just three days prior to the September 11 disaster. She is a journalist in Calgary and her first assignment when she returned was to cover the attack. Candi and her husband Ross and their two sons live in Calgary.

Peter and Faye Philip live in London , Ontario, where he is doing some contract work with the Attorney General's office. Peter will be remembered as a Commanding Officer at the White Spruce radar base.

Shirley and Grant Johnson live in Victoria. They enjoyed visiting with their children and grandchildren in Calgary and Winnipeg, but are remaining at home in Victoria this year.

While it looks like this may be a mild and relatively snowless holiday season, it wasn’t that way early in the new year of 1947.

A January storm left farmers in the Crescent Lake district, south of Yorkton, short of food and fuel. Roads were blocked and Eddie Halariwich, Crescent Lake storekeeper, was not able to restock his shelves.

Seventeen farmers in the area rigged up a tractor train, loaded it with cans of cream, oil drums, logging chains , shovels and a grocery list and battled their way, through the heavy snow, to Yorkton. The 20-mile trip took four and half hours of heavy going.

The farmers who lived within a six mile radius of Crescent Lake collected the grocery lists and fuel orders for everyone in the district, including six barrels of fuel oil for Eddie Powell, a dealer further south, and one for Mr. Halariwich to restock his shelves.

According to a news report, the tractor train was pulled by a Caterpillar tractor and the outfit was made up of wagon boxes loaded on two logging sleighs, used in the northern bush country and owned by Ben Chesney and his three sons, John, Ernie and Donald.