I have put my wreath on the door and I’m slowly making the transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I am so grateful for my children and being blessed to see them grow and do stuff. They are something else to behold. Yesterday I observed them doing things that made me smile and think, “Maybe all of this stuff I try to tell them is not bouncing off of the walls after all.”

Earlier this month I wrote about the alarming statistic that 90 percent of African American children and half of all children in this country will have received aid in the form of food stamps before they reach adulthood.

Yesterday, the New York Times published a four page article about several first-time recipients of “nutritional aid” (who, by the way, have suddenly seen the light that people who apply for said aid are not lazy people scamming the system) and an accompanying interactive graphic which breaks down recipient numbers as total, black, white, children and change since 2007. The graphic really makes one ponder the true costs of eight years of caring conservatism to regular people in this country.