It is Christmas time again. As I run around town, and I repeat “run around” town, doing all my holiday shopping from 10 trips to the grocery and one more trip to the mall, back to the dollar store for tape and boxes, I run into many of my fellows.

There are get-togethers with close friends, a company function, family gatherings, church programs and the like.

With all the season has to offer and the fine line between excitement and dread, there is a lot of talking going on.

I hear a lot of “I can’t find anything I’m looking for in Natchez, grocery prices are over the top here and the decorations downtown are dismal and need updating.”

I could name more, but I think I’ll pass.

The cup is either half empty or half full. The choice is yours. I found this little saying on the wall of a restaurant in Mobile, Ala. It spoke to me, and I hope it speaks to you.

Merry Christmas everyone.

“My town is the place where my house is found, my business is located and my vote is cast. It is where my children are educated, my neighbors and family dwell and where my life is chiefly lived. It is the home spot for me.

“My town has a right to my civil loyalties. It supports me, and I should support it.

“My town wants my citizenship, not my partisanship; my friendliness, not my dissentions; my sympathy, not my criticism; my intelligence, not my indifference.

“My town supplies me with protection, trade, friends, education, schools, churches and the right to free moral citizenship. It has something better than others.

“The best things, I should seek to make better. The worst things, I should help to suppress.

“Take it all-in-all. It’s my town and it is entitled to the best there is in me.”

Only we can be the change.

Anne Vidal Davis Willett is a Natchez resident.