Mark Knows It All

I have been writing Mark Knows It All for eight years making this my eighth Christmas Card.   Each year I begin to look for things that could be the topic of my year's favorite essay.   Over the years I have found Christmas in a mad dash for cookies, or in a little girl who was physically challenged going down the steps after a Christmas show, or on a drive to Sharon midst a spectacular full moon and beautiful decorations.    This has been a difficult year.    It has been filled with friends and family passing expectedly or unexpectedly.   There has been family turmoil rising up when we weren't paying attention.    People have been on edge.   Everybody seems to be angry.   Then there was that shooting thing in Connecticut just days before Christmas taking the lives of 28 people, twenty of whom were innocents.   As horrific as the Newtown massacre was, it pales in comparison to the violence on the streets of Chicago and Detroit.        The country is in financial turm