The Spokesman-Review editorial board wishes you a merry Christmas and the following reflections.

2009 has been a record year of “worsts” and “firsts.” Worst decline in retail sales. Worst advertising market. First time so many have lost jobs through no fault of their own. But overcoming these challenges has also given rise to many inspirational “firsts.” Producing a newspaper in a smaller format with fewer resources at minimal sacrifice of story count and relevance, for example.

In this season that asks us to consider the limitless capacity of human beings to love and forgive, I’m grateful for the opportunity to consider the same infinite capacity for ingenuity, adaptation and faith in a larger purpose.

– Stacey Cowles, publisher

I wasn’t sure my children were excited about Christmas until I came home exhausted one day. They knew there were gifts in the house, but they didn’t know where. My son, who usually cajoles his little sister to pop such questions, asks, “Will you be wrapping presents tonight?”

Ah, they wanted to see gifts under the tree.

When I was a kid in Las Vegas, my oldest sister would drive us around town to see the Christmas lights, while my mom wrapped presents. Looking back, it’s funny to think how excited we were by seasonal displays in a city of neon. When we’d get home, we’d race to the tree and start the evaluation. Who has the most? Who has the biggest? Wonder what that huge one is!

One year I had the biggest present, and it drove me crazy. As it turned out, it was a pack of Life Savers that my little sister placed at the bottom of an enormous box stuffed with newspapers.

Those are memories I want my kids to have, so I sent them upstairs and hauled out the wrapping paper, ribbons, tags and tape. The payoff came the next day, when they surrounded the tree and began the evaluation.

Maybe next year, I’ll try the old Life Savers trick.

– Gary Crooks, associate editor

A year ago I finally succumbed to digital photography. No more film to buy, no more processing to wait for. No more processing to pay for. And no more storage headaches.

But what about 40-plus years’ worth of negatives and slides? Jim Croce sang about saving time in a bottle. I keep it in envelopes and boxes and slide trays – thousands of images of family and pets, of sunsets and rainbows, of vacations and birthdays, and an abundance of Christmases past.

My photography has the aesthetics of a mud puddle, but who cares about artistry when your little girl bends to kiss her napping grampa, or your little boy stretches himself across the kitchen table, bare-bottomed, to watch TV, or both team up to attack one reachably low branch of the Christmas tree with all the ornaments they can gather.

What to do with those ancient but priceless sixtieths of a second? Digitalize! Out with the boxes and trays, in with the compactness of compact discs.

But until then, don’t take my Kodachrome away.

– Doug Floyd, editorial page editor