Keeping in the best of Christmas traditions, this week’s editorial will be a collection of stocking stuffers — and hardly any of them will be lumps of coal.

Be sure to check out this week’s Dear Santa section and especially a very imaginative exercise second grade teacher Megan Stuchlik assigned to her students at Centre.

Rather than simply list what they want for Christmas, she had them come up with a position on an issue — whether Santa should keep his beard — and offer logical and polite argument for that position.

Perhaps we need to send a few members of Congress back to her class to learn how to craft logical arguments for their positions.

In those letters to the Jolly Ol’ Gent, students often say the darndest things. Some are humorous. Some actually tug at heartstrings. Read ’em through. You’ll see what I mean.

Also be sure to get to the end of the story about the Wildcat and Warrior nicknames for Marion sports teams. One bright young student suggested a compromise: Call them the Warcats.

It’s a bit unclear what a Warcat is — as if anyone can identify a Jayhawk. A few of us who routinely are awakened by gentle clawing from generally docile feline companions also are worried our housemates might get some ideas about the name that we’d rather they didn’t have.

Whether Warcats is a great idea or a silly one, at least it’s an attempt to compromise. Once again we find wisdom from young people. Congress, are you listening?

Worrying about how Congress will deal with a debt crisis and whether our president-elect will select a cabinet more suitable to a reality show than governing seems to be how many people are getting ready for Christmas.

I have a different routine. Back-to-back, I have to watch the original “Miracle on 34th St.” followed by the more recent remake. Two remakes I skip — one with Sebastian Cabot as Santa and the other a kinescope of a live re-enactment of the movie from the 1950s.

Years ago, before streaming media and even before VCRs, finding the original “Miracle” often involved a miracle. While working at the Milwaukee Journal, I used to bribe our TV listings clerk (yes, we actually created our own each week) to tell me when and where the movie would be aired.

I’m enough of a “Miracle” nerd that I would actually travel and rent a room somewhere to be able to see it. The idea of a misunderstood person winning out in the end has an appeal to me that just won’t go away.

That may be what drew me to journalism. A lot of what we journalists do is make sure voices that aren’t being heard have a chance to get attention alongside the more powerful voices. It’s the old line: “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”

That actually originally was uttered as an insult toward journalists, but it has become a mantra for many — and the bane of existence for those who never seem to have any trouble having their voices heard.

This Christmas, we all should consider giving democracy a gift it most richly deserves — our honest voices. Becoming engaged citizens is far more important than idle gestures like saluting the flag, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, or standing for the National Anthem at a sporting event.

Getting involved is the best way to ensure that the freedoms we cherish aren’t gradually stolen away by those who want their voices to be the only ones heard.

— ERIC MEYER