By Dr. Brandon Roberts, DC

If you, your family and friends are healthy, consider it a blessing. The opportunity to gather and enjoy each other’s company without the worry or burden of suffering loved ones contributes greatly to a healthier holiday season.

If you and your loved ones fall into this category, consider taking your health to new levels. When faced with choices between healthy foods and unhealthy foods, choose the healthy ones. Make exercise your first priority by exercising first thing in the morning so that you do not get swept away by holiday activities and miss out on your workout. Schedule your adjustments in advance so your nervous system stays healthy and your body is more resistant to stress.

When you are making plans to gather with family and friends, do not just make appointments to gather around food and drink. Gather around going for walks in the woods or hikes in the mountains or on the trails. Gather around fresh air and sunshine. If the sun is not out or the weather is bad in your area, take a fitness class together. If you have young children, this will help them to build healthy habits and values that can last a lifetime.

When planning your holiday meals, experiment with healthier recipes. Look for dishes that call for fresh ingredients. Download five or six recipes from your favorite cooking website and have the people you will be gathering with do the same. Talk about them and decide which ones would be fun to experiment with. Mix in a new, fresh, healthy recipe with the other foods that you like to eat and bring balance to your holiday meals, making them less destructive to your body. Each year you can experiment with new recipes.

Before you know it, your holiday meals will become both delicious and healthy.

This can help you get off the weight loss, weight gain rollercoaster ride that has been a plague for so many people and you will leave your holiday table guilt-free and empowered.

If you or any of your friends or family members are experiencing pain or ill health of any kind this holiday season, this is all the more reason to make healthy choices a priority. By following these guidelines and removing pressure from the spine and nervous system with chiropractic care, this holiday season can become an opportunity to embrace a healing path and a healthier New Year.

Healthy gift giving can change a life. Many people are turning to healthy gift giving as a way to say, “I love you, I care about you, your health is important to me.” Your willingness to invest in the well-being of those that you love can go a long way to inspiring people to choose to invest in themselves. This action on your part can even act as an intervention to someone who is really in trouble and in denial about their health.

Healthy gifts can include a gym membership, exercise shoes, a heart monitor, a chiropractic examination or a series of chiropractic adjustments. We have gift certificates available in any amount you choose. While so many gifts are forgotten within 30 days, healthy gifts can be life changing and may be remembered for a lifetime.

Everyone deserves to be healthy and express their full potential from the time they are born through their last breath of life. This includes you and your loved ones. We hope that you enjoy the healthiest, happiest holiday season ever.

Dr. Brandon Roberts, DC is a 100 Year Lifestyle Affiliate Office. This newsletter is reprinted with permission of The Family Practice, Inc.

Deer Valley Chiropractic is located at 3381 Deer Valley Road. The phone number is 925-757-7571.

Newly elected Antioch School Board Trustees Gary Hack and Joy Motts will be given their oaths of office, tonight at an earlier than normal board meeting. The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. for the ceremonies followed by a brief reception, according to board President Claire Smith. The board will say farewell to outgoing trustee Teri Lynn Shaw, who was not reelected, last month.

The board will then go into closed session at 5:45 p.m. followed by its regular meeting beginning at 7 pm.

The meetings of the school board are held in the chambers at the district offices, 710 G Street, in historic downtown Rivertown.

To see the meeting agenda, visit www.antioch.k12.ca.us.

Has political correctness run amok? Consider the secular battle cry over Yuletide expressions; ‘Christmas tree’ or ‘holiday tree’; robust ‘merry Christmas’ or neutered ‘happy holidays’? Folks are cussing, not kissing, under the mistletoe over nomenclature, caught in a wintry cultural war swirling around innocent holiday semantics.

Call this a tyranny of the minority as, tellingly, 84% of Americans are Christian and 96% celebrate Christmas. Mr. Retailer, freely call your trees whatever. That’s your merchandising right. It’s also my consumer right to take my business to a vendor unembarrassed by the word Christmas. Pointedly, what elitist would likely drag a pine to the top of their ivory tower? Heaven forbid, the act might interrupt their incessant whining and cause a dreaded momentary spell of light heartedness.

As for calling out happy holidays, Hannukah, Kwanza or Ramadan, be my guest; indulge me my ‘merry Christmas!’ I’m also continuing with ‘happy New Year.’ Following the Roman tradition isn’t affronting the Babylonian, Baha’i, Balinese, Chinese, Coptic, Islamic, Mayan, Persian or, for that matter, Sports Illustrated calendar. Graciously, then, spare the sanctimonious indignation. My cultural links, family roots, and even plain common sense, scream bah humbug! to toasting an emotionally productive, disease free, economically advantageous, environmentally conscious, gender, race, religion and ethnicity neutral passing of the winter solstice.

Amidst shrill secularism, we forget Harry Truman’s words to Pope Pius XII in 1947; “this is a Christian nation”. America was, in truth, founded on Biblical principles. The genesis of the Bill of Rights is found in the teachings inspired by Exodus, Saint Matthew, Isaaha and Saint Paul. The Ten Commandments still rest on the wall behind the sitting Supreme Court Justices. Our coins still display the motto, “In God we trust”. The President still swears his oath of office on a Bible. Congress is still convened with prayer.

Though nobody is imposing a public religion, that doesn’t exclude faith from our resplendent national tapestry.

Friends, appropriate parting sentiments from Charles Dickens ‘Christmas Carol’; “I don’t know what to do! cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath. I am as light as a feather. I am happy as an angel. I am as merry as a school boy. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world.”

Walter Ruehlig

I am amazed at the glaring differences between our city and the city five miles west. That city’s government and chamber of commerce is innovative and progressive.

The amount of events and activities for the citizens of Pittsburg is amazing, considering the current financial crises that we are experiencing. Subscribe to Pittsburg’s website and be enlightened.

Pittsburg manages using ideas, opportunities, significant citizen input (not ignored) and action to improve its environment.  The community is a bit smaller than Antioch but it is much more aggressive on improvements embracing change. If you attend a function in that city you will experience the impact of how they manage by asking any active citizen; and they are active. I applaud their Council and Chamber  for the work being done. Good job, we should all give them a hand!

The city of Antioch might think of working closer with Pittsburg’s management to discover how they make things happen while we remain stagnant and regressive. At least regressive in respect to city-sponsored, supportive events and our Chamber’s active campaigns to attract more business; example, the Wal-Mart expansion fiasco. Where is our management’s push for improvements?

I realize that our budget is not something that will not be simply solved overnight or perhaps for years. What I have not seen is any action to raise money other than a failed sales tax measure. We are now applying event charges on non-profits, which is a slap in their face since their events supplant city-sponsored withdrawals. From my perspective when funds are short we head backwards.

Why not increase events with reasonable cost for attendance, instead of taxing our citizens? That would be  giving our citizens something for their money and offer more community participation. Too much cost to manage? Ever think of volunteers or the Chamber of Commerce ? The folks to the west are good at that! 

Fred Hoskins

Lucio-Rivera-Avila is suspected of hitting and killing a woman with his vehicle.

On December 7 at 1725 Cavallo Road an Antioch woman was hit, dragged and killed by a person driving a late model silver 4-door Nissan Frontier pickup with a luggage rack on the cab, who then fled the scene. The suspect is Lucio-Rivera-Avila, 51.

At approximately 1:49 a.m. Antioch police responded to a report of a woman who had just been struck by a vehicle. Officers located a female victim with significant wounds lying in the roadway. Life saving efforts were initiated and she was transported to a local hospital where she was eventually pronounced deceased.

The victim had been heard arguing with a person in the parking lot at the location just prior to being dragged by the vehicle, according to police. The vehicle was last seen fleeing northbound on Cavallo Road.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation should contact Antioch Police Detective Mellone at (925) 779-6930.

On December 6 at 10:47 p.m, Antioch police received a call that a person had been shot in front of 4509 Bison Way in Antioch. The victim, a 40-year-old Oakland resident, had been sitting in his vehicle at this location waiting for a friend to come home.

He was approached by a male wearing a mask who pointed a gun at him. He stepped out of the vehicle and the assailant shot him in the abdomen. The shooter then jumped into his vehicle and fled the area. The stolen vehicle is a 2005 black Mercedes Benz 2-door. At this time it has not been recovered.

The victim was transported to the hospital and is in stable condition with a non-life threatening injury. No other information is being released at this time.

Officers responded to the 2300 block of ‘L’ Street on Dec. 6 at 3:05 p.m. regarding reports of gunfire. Witnesses reported seeing several people in two vehicles fleeing the area and shots being fired.

Cory Ralls, 22, of Pittsburg, was a passenger in one of the vehicles that was struck several times by gunfire. Ralls was also struck by gunfire and he is being treated for his injuries. His injuries do not appear to be life threatening.

Officers are following up on numerous leads and the investigation is ongoing. At this point, there are no descriptions being released for the involved vehicles.

On December 6 at approximately 10 a.m. Antioch police officers responded to 2950 Delta Fair Blvd. on the report of a woman who had just been stabbed. Officers located a female victim with stab wounds.

They also located the person believed to have stabbed her, Roy Crites, 56, of Antioch, a short distance away. The victim was transported to the hospital where she was pronounced deceased. The victim was not immediately identified.

The early stages of the investigation have revealed that Crites and the victim were involved in a dispute in the parking lot and Crites assaulted her with a knife, according to police. The knife was recovered in the parking lot. Anyone with information regarding this investigation should contact Antioch Police Detective Castillo at (925) 779-6933.