The Week: The heart of our survey is in the comments, not the hard numerical data

The Week: The heart of our survey is in the comments, not the hard numerical data

by | Feb 18, 2021

Are local government satisfaction ratings rising or falling in the Comox Valley? It depends on where you live  |  George Le Masurier photo

The Week: The heart of our survey is in the comments, not the hard numerical data

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We published the results of our Local Government Performance Review this week and it created lots of buzz for those who follow local politics. Most people don’t, of course, unless the politicians do something to tick them off, like raise taxes, or do something really good, like reduce taxes.

The majority of people only get excited about local politics when an election comes around. So, being closer to the next election than the last one, we wondered how satisfied people were with their elected officials.

And, boy, did they tell us. It would be an understatement to say there were a lot of strong opinions expressed in the survey comments.

But here’s something to keep in mind about this survey. It wasn’t a random sampling of the Comox Valley population, at least not in the sense of a poll by Agnus Reid or Gallup.

If it had been, then our sample size of 314 respondents would have had a 4.65 percent margin of error with 90 percent probability that the sample accurately reflected the attitudes of the whole Comox Valley.

But we broke our survey down so that only people who identified as voting in Courtenay, for example, could rate their level of satisfaction with city councillors. It was the same for all jurisdictions.

And the respondents to our survey self-selected to participate. Many, perhaps most, may be regular Decafnation readers, although the sample was only a percentage of our subscriber base.

So the Local Government Performance Review was designed to be qualitative research, not quantitative. It was meant to describe the reasoning and motivations behind respondents satisfaction ratings, rather predict anything based on the hard numerical data.

So do not look at this survey and conclude that if an election were held tomorrow, Daniel Arbour would get 89 percent of the vote in Area A or that only 24 percent of voters in Comox would choose Russ Arnott for mayor.

But the survey does highlight the difference in attitudes between jurisdictions, and here the numbers and the comments intersect.

Most respondents in Courtenay and Areas A and B like how their elected officials have performed and the comments explain why. Respondents were not happy in Comox or Area C and here the comments were even more pointed and passionate.

By reading the comments, you gain an understanding of why the respondents approved or disapproved of their local government and politicians.

The last civic election in 2018 brought transformative change to the Comox Valley when voters elected more progressive-mined people in Courtenay and Electoral Areas A and B. This altered the conversation in those areas and, as a result, also at the important regional district board table.

And so far, at least, there’s an indication that this survey’s respondents are satisfied with that.

 

— A farmer who leases some of the Courtenay Flats from Duck Unlimited fears that an expansion of the Highway 19A bypass will negatively impact his roadside farm stand business. Nobody wants to choose between farmland and more roads.

But the possibility of widening the highway bypass shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was planned decades ago.

The City of Courtenay and the Ministry of Transportation have been seeking a solution to growing congestion at the 17th Street bridge. Two years ago, a consultant working with the city on its Transportation Master Plan, suggested a bridge at 21st Street and set off fire alarms in diverse segments of the community.

A bridge at that location would have cut through the heart of the Courtenay Airpark and forced the facility to close. It would have connected on the other side of the river into the heart of the Kus-kus-sum and derailed a joint city and KFN reconciliation project.

The city never intended a bridge at 21st and deleted the overreaching consultant’s bad idea. But a serious conversation ensued about a third crossing and the city’s limited options and alternatives.

Among the most promising short-term solutions was raised by Dan Bowen, a former Highways Ministry employee.

The primary problem, he said then, is that there are two northbound lanes of traffic approaching the bridge from the south on Cliffe Avenue and two lanes on the bridge. But whether you turn north or south, you have to merge down to one lane.

It’s the same approach to the bridge from the north on the Island Highway bypass, which is two lanes at Superstore, but merges down to one lane at the bridge.

Bowen believes there should be four lanes of traffic approaching the 17th Street bridge, across the bridge and then all the way to the Shell gas station at the old Island Highway and also part way toward Comox.

The long-term solution, he said, is to twin the 17th Street bridge. The highways ministry purchased extra land on the northside of 17th Street east of Cliffe Avenue to anticipate a widened bridge. That land looks like a park with cherry trees.

The ministry also designed the bypass for four lanes, which is why the shoulders are extra wide through the S-turns.

We don’t know what the ministry surveyors were doing when they alarmed the Courtenay Flats farmer, but it’s possible they were gathering new data about expanding the bypass into four lanes.

As Bowen said, that was the plan from the beginning but the province opted for a half-measure. It should have put four lanes in right away. It would have been less expensive in the long run and farmers and farm stands could have developed as they did, just in a slightly different location.

 

— Anyone else a little disturbed that the U.S. is vaccinating about 1.7 million people per day while nearly three months after vaccines became available, Canada still hasn’t vaccinated that many in total?

And Canadians can’t tell whether the Trudeau government screwed up its negotiations for vaccine supplies or if the drug companies screwed us because Ottawa has kept the deal a secret.

 

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The Week: How sorry are you for people pleading “trapped” in Arizona or Mexico?

The Week: How sorry are you for people pleading “trapped” in Arizona or Mexico?

by | Feb 4, 2021

George Le Masurier photo

The Week: How sorry are you for people pleading “trapped” in Arizona or Mexico?

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Thanks to all those who completed the survey and participated in Decafnation’s first-ever Local Government Performance Review.

The survey will close Saturday night and we’ll start analyzing the results. We plan to publish our story about the survey next week with appropriate charts and graphs.

The idea behind the survey was to check in on the community’s level of satisfaction roughly midway through our elected officials’ terms in office. Having an indication of whether people are satisfied or not might give some the confidence to keep doing what they’re doing and cause others to rethink their strategies.

LAST CHANCE to participate in the survey. Do it now

Based on the 2018 election, it’s possible that by this time next year candidates will start declaring their intention to seek re-election or to unseat incumbents.

 

— It’s interesting to see former Credit Union manager Rick Kellow reigniting his political activism in the Comox Valley. Back in 1992 when Kellow ran for Comox Town Council he said his policy was “to boldly step where no one has gone before.” It was almost a quote from Star Wars.

Kellow’s bold step was to say that councillors (called aldermen, then) should stop bickering and face hard facts, including the high cost of a park on Comox Hill and the futility of trying to keep the town “a village by the sea.”

 

— How sorry are you for the folks who, despite almost everyone in the entire universe telling them not to travel out of the country, went to Mexico or Palm Desert anyway? If you’re like me, the answer is, “I’m not.”

The Times-Colonist, the conservative Victoria newspaper, has been giving a voice to people who feel entitled to ignore the recommendations of Canada’s top Medical Health Officer and the Prime Minister. And now they’re running stories about people “trapped” in sunny places like Arizona.

Yesterday, the T-C gave top-of-the-page billing to a Parksville couple who want an exemption from paying $2,000 to quarantine in a hotel while awaiting results of a COVID test. Ray and Joanne Moschuk said they should be exempt because Arizona “is our home.”

Their home? Ray might want to be careful about that because if he’s claiming residence in Arizona, he’ll lose his BC Medical Services Plan.

Moschuk also questioned Canada’s legal right to penalize its own citizens. I’m guessing that’s a long shot, but just in case he’s right I’m digging up the amount I paid for those speeding tickets 25 years ago.

So many people have made sacrifices — serious sacrifices — during this pandemic in order to obey the recommendations of Dr Bonnie Henry and Dr Tam. They didn’t travel. They haven’t hugged grandchildren. They didn’t have a family Christmas dinner.

They make the Moschuk’s look like a pair of spoiled brats.

Just for some warmer weather, they travelled to a country with the third-worst infection rate in the world, where more than 120,000 new cases occur every day, and now they complain about taking a test on their return?

Recently the T-C also published a long, rambling op-ed by the Fraser Institute’s Gwyn Morgan that urged people to defy the Prime Minister and travel internationally. Along the way, he disparaged jobless CERB recipients and accused them of cheating the system.

Then, in a separate column, the newspaper’s editor and publisher, Dave Obee, defended his decision to run the irresponsible column.

Apparently, the Times-Colonist has muddled the concept of we’re all in this together and pulling in the same direction to defeat a common enemy.

 

— We all hope that someday someone will find a clever way for the whole world to willingly reduce its collective carbon emissions and save the human race from extinguishing itself.

But based on the level of thinking in Alberta, don’t make any bets.

The province’s United Conservative government is determined to increase coal mining in the Rocky Mountains. That in itself is mind-boggling. Worldwide coal production declined 14 percent in recent years and the US has cut coal-fired electricity generation by 40 percent.

And it gets worse.

Alberta’s elected leaders say they have enacted “strict regulatory standards,” but in reality have scrapped monitoring two rivers and a creek that have already shown high levels of selenium, a toxic byproduct of coal mining operations.

And the town of High River has asked the United Conservative government to stop coal exploration in their area.

Is there no other economic hope for Albertans than to be the eager suppliers to the world’s last remaining climate-destroying power plants? They’re going to be the pusher that delivers the last spike into the atmospheric vein?

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The Week: We focus on how our money is spent and Wildwood: a model for Shakesides

The Week: We focus on how our money is spent and Wildwood: a model for Shakesides

by | Jan 28, 2021

A new study shows when nobody is watching, the cost of government goes up  |  Photo by Thomas Charters, Unsplash

The Week: We focus on how our money is spent and Wildwood: a model for Shakesides

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Decafnation has always given a special focus on coverage of local government in order to keep elected officials and the staff they direct accountable to the public. Because a democracy works best in broad daylight and part of our mission is to make sure the sun is always shining.

Filling out our local government satisfaction survey is one way for you to help. Another way is to read the story and browse the charts we published this week about municipal finances.

Our goal was to present some key information in an easy-to-find format. We waded through hundreds of pages of Annual Reports and Statements of Financial Information so you wouldn’t have to.

Have you taken five minutes to fill out our Local Government Performance Review? Why not do it right now?

We’ll update these charts and republish them as soon as the 2020 information becomes available later this year. In the meantime, we’re going to improve the charts with some suggestions from readers. 

You don’t have to be a numbers-nerd to take an interest in municipal finances. You just have to care how your tax money is being spent.

 

— An interesting study showed that when a local newspaper closes, the cost of government increases. A professor of finance at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business researched whether there was a direct line between “the loss of watchful eyes of local newspapers” and a decline in government efficiency.

You can read the study here, but here’s a spoiler alert: when nobody’s watching the cost of government goes up.

 

— The story of the preservation and restoration of Merv Wilkinson’s Wildwood property by a small charitable society provides an excellent model for the Town of Comox. It shows how, with local government and community support, volunteers can turn something that was left to deteriorate into a bright community asset.

The small Victoria-based Ecoforestry Institute Society restoration of Wildwood’s abandoned forest acreage and homestead was achieved by a group of people who refused to let Wilkinson’s legacy die. They fought for the property and won a court victory.

With a strong business plan, they marshalled volunteers willing to do hands-on work and attracted donations, grants and support from the Regional District of Nanaimo. And through their passion, they delivered a success.

The small Mack Laing Heritage Society faces similar obstacles: a property abandoned and in disrepair and a legal battle. But they too have refused to let Laing’s legacy die. They too have a business plan, public support and a long list of volunteers ready to transform Shakesides into Laing’s vision.

What the Laing society doesn’t have is local government support. In fact, local government is their main obstacle.

The Town of Comox long ago turned its back on Mack Laing, misused his financial generosity and ignored his important place in Comox history. And now the current Comox Councillors want to drive the final stake through Laing’s memory.

But an open-minded examination of the Wildwood model for success could lead to a more positive outcome because Wildwood answers a key question that has plagued some Comox Councillors: how to fulfil Mack Laing’s Trust Agreement in a self-sustaining way.

Wildwood does more than pay for itself and the society’s $450,000 mortgage. It funnels money back into the economy of the Regional District of Nanaimo. It creates jobs and adds an internationally popular tourist destination to the Nanaimo-Ladysmith area’s list of popular attractions.

People come to tour Wildwood’s sustainable forest and to enjoy a stay in an environment far away from their urban daily lives. People would come to tour Mack Laing’s little sanctuary for birds, trails, Brooklyn Creek and Comox Bay and for overnight respites surrounded by nature.

 

— It’s an interesting aside that when the tiny Ecoforestry Institute Society plunged into a legal battle to win control of Wildwood, they turned to Victoria Lawyer Patrick Canning. So, it’s not a coincidence that Canning is now working with the Mack Laing Heritage Society.

 

— The old saying that “timing is everything” plays an important part in all of our lives and so it was for Mack Laing.

The Comox Valley Lands Trust didn’t exist in the late 1970s or even in 1982 when Laing died. If it had, he surely would have left his property with a covenant held by the Lands Trust to ensure his Trust Agreement was fulfilled.

Nor did Laing have knowledge of Trust Deeds, such as the Ecoforest Institute Society has on the Wildwood property. The Trust Deed ensures that Wildwood can never be sold to a private interest and it also defines the charitable purpose under which the property must be operated.

In other words, future Wildwood boards of directors cannot just decide to clear cut the whole thing and rake in the money. Wildwood must always be operated as an ecoforest, always within ecological boundaries.

Put in Shakesides’ terms, future councils could not have just decided to tear down his house and pour a concrete slab. Shakesides would have had to be always operated as the natural history museum that Laing envisioned.

 

—The Comox Youth Climate Council has started a petition that urges local government to purchase the 3L Developments property in the Puntledge Triangle and for the City of Courtenay not to annex these lands. The petition states:

“This petition is a call to action to our elected leaders, from the CVRD and beyond, to refuse intimidation from 3L Developments or development proponents and to do the right thing to protect Stotan Falls in the long-term. We urge you to do your best to purchase the Puntledge Triangle lands and riverbed and to continue to create a network of regional parks along the Puntledge River. These purchases will contribute to increasing our social and recreational capital while also protecting our natural assets. Preserving nature not only offers many benefits to our health and wellbeing, but it also increases our resilience to climate change and prevents biodiversity loss.”

 

— General Motors announced this week that it will no longer build gas-guzzlers after 2035. The company plans to be carbon-neutral in 20 years.

GM said in its announcement that, “The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.”

The company will sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions starting in 15 years, a seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

Surely this will put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments and embolden elected officials like Prime Minister Trudeau to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change: Read, abandon the TMX pipeline. 

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The Week: Take our local government survey!

The Week: Take our local government survey!

by | Jan 18, 2021

How are they doing down at the Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland, CVRD and District 71 town halls?  |  Archive photo

The Week: Take our local government survey!

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Are you satisfied with the performance of your elected officials? In less than two years — 20 months and three weeks to be exact — Comox Valley voters will again elect representatives to local municipal councils, the regional district and the District 71 school board.

We have just passed the middle of our sitting elected officials’ current terms.

And if the 2018 election is any reliable indicator, some candidates will start their campaigns for the Oct. 15, 2022 election around this time next year.

So how have our elected officials performed over the last two-plus years? What have they done well and what have they not done so well? What are the issues each council and board should address in the last half of their terms?

We’re curious about how Decafnation readers would answer those questions.

This week, Decafnation is launching its first-ever Local Government Performance Review. It’s a short survey that asks readers to rank their satisfaction with the elected officials who represent them and to specify the issues they should tackle before the 2022 election.

Readers will also have the ability to make brief comments about their rating of each councillor, director or trustee. The comments are a key part of the survey because they will help explain your responses.

It is an anonymous survey. Share it widely.

 

— On the Decafnation Facebook page a few weeks ago, we asked for help from anyone experienced in building online surveys. We got lucky when Kelly Kostuik volunteered.

Kelly is a professional engineer with an MBA degree. She moved to the Comox Valley from Calgary with his family five years ago and now works as an independent consultant. That leaves him time for mountain biking, skiing, paddling, volunteering, learning new stuff and “checking things off my bucket list.”

Although he hadn’t used the Survey Monkey platform before, Kelly quickly became a whiz. He built the survey and the analytics behind it in just a few days.

 

— The deep disagreements over the future of the Comox Valley Economic Development Society (EDS) will be aired starting today, Jan. 19. But not publicly.

The mayors of Courtenay and Comox, regional electoral area directors and their chief administrative officers are scheduled to begin the process of formally reviewing the regional economic development function. The review was requested by the Town of Comox.

The regional district board had already decided after last fall’s two-day special session to plot a new course for the EDS over the next year. But the Town of Comox couldn’t wait, so they triggered this formalized session allowed for under the Local Government Act.

Why did they do that? We might never know because none of the review meetings will be held in open session.

That means the public will be barred from hearing why Comox initiated the review, what their grievances are and what our public officials discuss behind these closed doors.

However, the small review group cannot make any final decisions. Whatever courses of action emerge from the review will ultimately have to be approved by individual councils. And that will be public.

Among the multiple possible outcomes from the review, the Town of Comox could serve notice of its intention to withdraw from the function as Cumberland did about five years ago. If that happens the EDS will likely collapse, leaving Courtenay and the three rural electoral areas to figure out what might rise from the ashes.

 

— The Comox Youth Climate Council held their first-ever annual general meeting Saturday via Zoom. About 30 people participated, including some observers from over the maximum membership age of 25.

The CYCC is a group of dedicated Comox Valley high school, college and university students, “persistent in striving for climate action.”

The group formed last October “as a result of our feeling of responsibility and dedication to do our part fighting the climate crisis to safeguard the future of our planet and its inhabitants. Our vision is to create a space for youth aged from 13 to 25 years old from a diversity of backgrounds to come together to work for social and climate justice in the Comox Valley.”

Kalea Richardson was elected the group’s new chair after a spirited campaign speech. Although her opponent, Will Hatch, scored points for his willingness to collaborate and his praise for Richardson — “She would make a great chair…” — he fell a few votes short. Hatch will serve as treasurer of the group.

 

 

 

 

HOW HAVE OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS PERFORMED?

TAKE THE SURVEY

 

 

 

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The Week: buzzing about city annexation (don’t bet on it) and 3L logging (yeah, probably)

The Week: buzzing about city annexation (don’t bet on it) and 3L logging (yeah, probably)

by | Jan 12, 2021

Who needs a Mexican beach in January, it’s almost as warm here (not)  |  George Le Masurier photo

The Week: buzzing about city annexation (don’t bet on it) and 3L logging (yeah, probably)

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There was a lot of buzz last week about 3L Developments on-going attempt to subvert the Regional Growth Strategy in order to build 780 new houses in the Puntledge Triangle. But 3L itself generated only some of that buzz.

A group of 12 people called the Save Stotan Falls Committee triggered most of the chatter. It sprung from a full-page “advertorial” they placed in the Comox Valley Record that suggested a forward-thinking Courtenay Council would annex 3L’s property into the city. This would save millions of dollars. Increased tax revenue for Courtenay. Free land for K’omoks First Nation. Save Stotan Falls. Preserve forests.

They stopped only slightly short of guaranteeing world peace.

But the group did not mention that 3L has recently hinted at dedicating a large chunk of their land to a future convention centre — disguised as an agriplex, whatever that really means. Or that certain members of the anonymous group have promoted the centre as their personal legacy to the Comox Valley.

It’s possible that two separate purposes have aligned: If 3L gets annexed, then the good old boys get some land for their convention centre. And both are using the preservation of easy access to Stotan Falls as cover for their true intentions.

To make the scheme work, they have practically exalted the swimming hole to sacred status. It’s become a shine that commands reverence to which all else should be sacrificed. No matter that maybe five percent of the local population goes there in any given year.

So the ad created some buzz. There were rumours of a counter-petition and possibly another ad refuting the Save Stotan Falls Committee ad.

But this is all wild-eyed speculation because annexation is off the table for now.

3L Developments has not applied to the city for annexation. It would have been rejected if they had. City planners are not accepting applications for annexation at least until the current Official Community Plan review winds up.

And when the city finally formalizes a new OCP sometime next year, the smart money will bet against annexation under its new terms.

Now, the other buzz last week was about 3L sending a letter to property owners adjacent to their land. The letters said that unless the regional district reached a deal with the company to purchase the land by Jan. 21, 3L would start cutting down trees.

Reaching a multi-million dollar purchase agreement takes time. And when you’re dealing with a government that is slow-moving by nature, the two- or three-week deadline was a fantasy. More likely a PR tactic.

The company may well follow through and do some perimeter logging in a week or so, but that doesn’t preclude any eventual purchase agreement.

The letters, the full-page ad and the petition flashed brightly for a few days. But we’re back to reality now.

— Sometime next week, the Comox Valley Regional District board will gather with a special mediator and listen to Comox directors complain about how they don’t like what’s happening to the Economic Development Society (EDS).

After a similar session last fall failed to pull directors into a common vision for the society’s future role, the Town of Comox asked for a formal service review. This is a legislated process to air grievances and seek resolutions. It’s also a required step before a participant such as the town can pull out of the service.

There’s no telling how long the service review might take. During the October session, it became clear that the Comox and Area C directors had one view and the rest of the board had another. There appeared to be little common ground.

Courtenay and Area A and B directors take a broader view of what constitutes economic development. For example, they see that providing affordable housing and accessible child care helps businesses attract and retain employees.

They realize that helping small local businesses create effective and competitive online sales platforms will sustain them beyond the pandemic. They believe that maintaining and expanding mountain bike infrastructure benefits businesses across the whole community.

Comox resists these new efforts. They want the EDS to help them fund a marina expansion and keep throwing the Seafood Festival party.

It may even be more personal than that. Everyone but the Comox directors think the town has benefited from EDS activities more than everyone else and to an extent that is out of proportion to their financial investment. If the EDS moves in the direction preferred by the board majority, Comox will no longer be the centre of attention.

So, it’s possible that at the end of the service review Comox will pick up its marbles and go home. Comox might choose to follow Cumberland’s lead and set up its own Economic Development office.

In our opinion, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. If each municipality had its own economic development officer and the electoral areas had their own at the regional district, they could all focus precisely on what each area needs and wants. Once a month, the four ED officers could all get together to explore ways of working together.

Or, maybe the directors will find common ground during next week’s service review. But don’t bet on it.

 

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The Week: Save 58% on the ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ gifts, and other useless information

The Week: Save 58% on the ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ gifts, and other useless information

by | Dec 23, 2020

Photo Caption

The Week: Save 58% on the ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ gifts, and other useless information

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Decafnation has searched high and low for some good news this holiday season. And we found it! The 2020 Christmas Price Index has dropped 58.5 percent over last year. Wait, is that good news?

It will cost $22,825.45 less to purchase all the items named in “The 12 Days of Christmas” song this year. The PNC Financial Services Group prices the items every year as a measure of the economy.

The 12 items will cost $16,168.14 this year ($38,993.59 in 2019). Most of the decrease came from the “cancellations of many live performances. It’s a silent night at most symphonies and the lights have dimmed for many dancers this holiday season, which contributes to the year-over-year decline.”

Partridge in a Pear Tree — $210.18 (0.0% change)
Two turtle doves — $450.00 (+50.0%)
Three French hens — $210.00 (+15.7)
Four calling birds — $599.96 (0.0%)
Five golden rings – $945.00 (+14.5%)
Six geese-a-laying — $570.00 (+35.7%)
Seven swans-a-swimming — $13,125 (0.0%)
Eight maids-a-milking — $58.00 (0.0%)
Nine ladies dancing — Not available in 2020
Ten lords-a-leaping — Not available in 2020
Eleven pipers piping — Not available in 2020
Twelve drummers drumming — Not available in 2020
Total — $16,168.14 or $105,561.80 if you count all the repetitions in the song

 

— Some of the dream gifts we hope are under the Comox Valley tree this year include a COVID vaccination for everyone, a regional parks service, a transformed Economic Development service that actually helps all local businesses (not just a special few), fully-functional laboratories in the Courtenay and Campbell River (restored onsite pathologist services), municipal governments with a heightened climate change mentality that results in action on rainwater management, traffic improvements at the 17th Street Bridge, a BC Supreme Court victory for the Mack Laing Heritage Society and an enlightened Comox Council.

 

— But here’s a gift you can give yourself: Passes to the 30th edition of the World Community Film Festival, virtual edition. This year, you can watch films from the comfort of your home at any time during the festival. Audience members can purchase festival passes or tickets for individual films and decide when to watch, in any order, from Feb. 5 through Feb. 13.

It’s “your festival, your way,” says Programmer Janet Fairbanks. “We are excited to be offering a great lineup of international documentary films addressing social and environmental justice, LGBTQ+, Indigenous issues, food security, climate change, music and arts. Bonus features will include interviews with filmmakers and other resource people.

 

— This tree that kept on giving … for two years. A high school teacher in Scotland kept the same Christmas tree up and decorated from 2007 to 2009. After a friend kidded him about still having his tree up by Twelfth Night, he decided to leave it up … for more than 750 days.

 

— From our collection of Lame Christmas jokes, which are not only for kids.

Q: What did Adam say on the day before Christmas?
A: It’s Christmas, Eve!

Q: How do you make an idiot laugh on boxing day?
A: Tell him a joke on Christmas Eve!

Q: What do you have in December that you don’t have in any other month?
A: The letter “D”!

Q: What does Father Christmas suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney?
A: Santa Claustrophobia!

Q: What do you call a letter sent up the chimney on Christmas Eve?
A: Blackmail!

Q: Who delivers a cat’s Christmas presents?
A: Santa Paws!

Q: Why does Father Christmas go down the chimney?
A: Because it soots him!

Q: Who delivers elephants’ Christmas presents?
A: Elephanta Claus!

Q: Why is Santa like a bear on Christmas Eve?
A: Because he’s Sooty!

Q: What is the best Christmas present in the world?
A: A broken drum, you just can’t beat it!

 

— Our favourite Christmas quote:

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!” –Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Happy Holidays

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