This is a repost from 1/3/15 and actually National Fruitcake Toss Day is the first Saturday of January, so it isn’t really the right day, but funny enough to bear repeating.

That poor old fruitcake has been sitting in a box for over a month now. You can’t bear to throw it away, because someone has put a lot of effort into making it.  Today is your chance. Where else, but in America, would a day be set aside for tossing your fruitcake?

When you think about it, we are a nation of throwing things away.   When something has outrun its usefulness we toss it.  I remember days when we saved everything.  Egg cartons were recycled along with milk and pop bottles.  Diapers were washed and re-used.  Clothing was handed down to three our four children until it no longer stayed in one piece.  Disposable items have only increased the landfills.  Oh how far we’ve come!  And now we can add to this, the tossing of a innocent little fruitcake whose only goal in life was to make us happy.

We can’t change the direction of today without putting some value on the things of the past.  As we start this new year and think about how we’ll resolve to make this a better place, maybe we should become less concerned with quantity and more on quality.  We can start by eating that fruitcake or giving it to someone who would gladly eat it, because they’re hungry.

The point of my post really has nothing to do with fruitcake, but hopefully will get us thinking about the value we place on things rather than on people.  We’re all like little fruitcakes in a way – made up of a variety of talents and flavors.  If we share just a small piece of ourselves, the planet will survive with God’s intervention.  By the way, He doesn’t need our help.