E
A Christmas Wish to all my SW brothers and sisters. It has been another great year for my family and I with many roads leading back to the people I have met and the experiences I have had due to the folks on this site. Have a safe season and a Great New Year. EW
December 21st has past, I’m still writing this, the Mayans were wrong. Good thing. As Christmas approaches winter is here, most lights are up and I eagerly await the Chia Pet commercials that will replace the political ads that echo in my TV mind. Even though I’m no longer in the business, my internal clock seems to think there is snow I’m required to plow out there some where. It’s so nice not to have to be somewhere on time this morning. A quick look at the online news only has a couple references to Christmas and both of those are either fund raising or fiscal cliff related. It got me thinking about Christmas. I tend to use and experience the word Christmas in two different references. The first is the recognition and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The second is what we so commonly call the Christmas Season or Holiday Season if the word and belief in Christ soggy’s your Grape Nuts. (There’s a red spelling error line under my word soggy’s, but I like it anyway.)
The Christmas Season (typically the month of December) seems to be a pretty universal designation that for me has included historical trimmings such as radiant sweaters, warm hand shakes, cold nights, and a lot of fond memories of friends, family, and goodwill. The goodwill is the part that I most enjoy reflecting on and taking part in during this time of year. Each year that goodwill results in some really inspiring stories of kindness and giving related to the Christmas Season. I have always looked forward to witnessing and participating in these “seasonal” gestures that are some of my fondest and proudest memories.
I wish there was a way to bottle up the joyous frame of mind that we experience, provide, and share in abundance with each other this time of year and put it into the pantry next to the Worchestershire (another red line, no h after the c in Worcestershire). If we all had Christmas Joy stored up on our shelves we could pull it out and add a dash to our daily lives as needed during the rest of the year. How cool would that be? Imagine being able to preserve that rewarding kindness, patience, tolerance, and selflessness you feel during the Christmas Season and being able to shake a few drops onto yourself later in the year when that voice on the other end of you credit card inquiry just can’t get it right and you are about to go postal. Imagine how much our local referee’s, coaches, traffic flaggers, pedestrians, train engineers, and elected officials would appreciate having a few bottles of the stuff on hand and readily available just incase. The ladies at the car tabs office would probably keep it in a Super Soaker. No doubt all our family members would keep a bottle in the guest room and our coworkers would have one for us to use liberally as needed in the work place.
This stuff would sell itself. You wouldn’t even need to market it with “call in the next two minutes”, or be promised a double sized bottle or curly fry maker to get you to have it on hand.
I think Christmas joy and goodwill has all the potential in the world to be used the other 11 months of the year as well. The challenge is remembering that it IS readily available even though there is no bottle to look at on the shelf. All we need to do is look within ourselves.
I first became aware of this limited or seasonal usage and under utilization of Christmas Joy many years ago during a Christmas time trip to Coeur d’ Alene. I had taken my crew there for a fun holiday get away and a chance to experience all the awesome lights, decorations, and great food that CDA has to offer during Christmas. I woke up early on Sunday morning thinking about the brunch we were going to have later and how good it all is. The view over the lake was incredible and the snow layer was cold enough to have that squeaky sound coming from it when you walked on it. I decided to take a morning stroll on the docks and through the city streets. I wandered into one of the local stores that was just opening up for the day. As I was looking around I noticed a Tree of Sharing with a few names left on it. I plucked off a couple of the name cards and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Just a little background here, I have worked with toy acquisition for Operation Santa locally for over 20 years. In that time I have seen gift requests that you wouldn’t believe. That’s another story for another day.
Anyway, as I was looking at the requests from local kids in CDA I saw wish items like shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, stuff like that. I was completely puzzled by these requests. I asked the store guy what the deal was and he just casually said “oh, those are Children’s Village kids”. After a long chat I figured out that Children’s Village was a privately operated home for kids in the CDA area with no other options or places to live. The kids who are residents at Children’s Village (CV) are taught from an early age how to budget and manage their funds. They are given monthly allowances and are then responsible to provide to a certain extent for their own personal needs. The lesson is that if a kid spends all his or her allowance on movies or CD’s then they are probably going to be brushing their teeth with their finger for the next month. Kids are smart and I think we often under estimate their ability to reason. CV kids had figured out that for one month of the year most of us are exceedingly generous and abundant with kindness and giving. The resulting effect for them was receiving the huge Costco size triple shrink wrapped shampoo as a Christmas gift which in turn freed up their cash flow for other items of their own choosing for months to come. For these kids getting the shampoo and freeing up cash for what they like was a much safer gamble than the possible yellow or green sweater that you or I might get them based on our own sometimes dated tastes.
Kelly and I have been supporters of the Children’s Village effort ever since. I have never forgotten the deeper meaning and realization of my Sunday morning in CDA when I realized for the first time that exceeding kindness, patients, and generosity in our society can sometimes be all packaged into the same month each year leaving the other 11 months a little starved for the acts of goodness and compassion that make December such a stand out. Even little kids in CDA have figured this out.
For me, the positive energy that I put out in efforts to benefit others comes back to me in the form of pride, joy, happiness, and self fulfillment. These are all great flavors in life that can be enjoyed any month of the year just like adding a dash of that Worcestershire to the hamburgers in July or the chili in October.
Keeping a ready dose of Christmas time joy in your hearts for the entire year is my Christmas wish for all of you who are my friends and family. I sincerely hope that the joys of the season stay with you and yours as you enter into the New Year and beyond. I hope the New Year brings you lots of shampoo so you are free to spread your other blessings as you see fit on all the people and purposes in your lives that are important and rewarding to you. A good friend of mine once said “to live in abundance yourself, you must participate in abundance for others”. I’m a real believer in this statement and I believe its meaning was meant for more months of the year than December. I hope you enjoy and celebrate Christmas and all that it means in abundance for yourself and others. As you move into the New Year and the coming months, don’t forget where you keep your Christmas time Joy and Generosity just incase you or I need a shake or two to get that great flavor back in your life and the lives of those around.
In closing I would like to take a moment to pray for and reflect on our brothers and sisters in the military, our family, friends, and those dealing with hardships, and most recently the victims of the tragic shootings and all those affected by their loss. It is my hope that those who are grieving will be surrounded by evidence and true understandings of the sorrow, compassion, and loving support of a nation praying for their healing and strength at such a challenging time.
My family and I are grateful to all of you for your friendship and being in our lives. We are aware of and thankful for all the blessings we have received this past year and we know that without all of you these blessings would be far fewer and way less fun. We are truly fortunate.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and All the Best to you and yours in 2013.
EricW
December 21st has past, I’m still writing this, the Mayans were wrong. Good thing. As Christmas approaches winter is here, most lights are up and I eagerly await the Chia Pet commercials that will replace the political ads that echo in my TV mind. Even though I’m no longer in the business, my internal clock seems to think there is snow I’m required to plow out there some where. It’s so nice not to have to be somewhere on time this morning. A quick look at the online news only has a couple references to Christmas and both of those are either fund raising or fiscal cliff related. It got me thinking about Christmas. I tend to use and experience the word Christmas in two different references. The first is the recognition and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The second is what we so commonly call the Christmas Season or Holiday Season if the word and belief in Christ soggy’s your Grape Nuts. (There’s a red spelling error line under my word soggy’s, but I like it anyway.)
The Christmas Season (typically the month of December) seems to be a pretty universal designation that for me has included historical trimmings such as radiant sweaters, warm hand shakes, cold nights, and a lot of fond memories of friends, family, and goodwill. The goodwill is the part that I most enjoy reflecting on and taking part in during this time of year. Each year that goodwill results in some really inspiring stories of kindness and giving related to the Christmas Season. I have always looked forward to witnessing and participating in these “seasonal” gestures that are some of my fondest and proudest memories.
I wish there was a way to bottle up the joyous frame of mind that we experience, provide, and share in abundance with each other this time of year and put it into the pantry next to the Worchestershire (another red line, no h after the c in Worcestershire). If we all had Christmas Joy stored up on our shelves we could pull it out and add a dash to our daily lives as needed during the rest of the year. How cool would that be? Imagine being able to preserve that rewarding kindness, patience, tolerance, and selflessness you feel during the Christmas Season and being able to shake a few drops onto yourself later in the year when that voice on the other end of you credit card inquiry just can’t get it right and you are about to go postal. Imagine how much our local referee’s, coaches, traffic flaggers, pedestrians, train engineers, and elected officials would appreciate having a few bottles of the stuff on hand and readily available just incase. The ladies at the car tabs office would probably keep it in a Super Soaker. No doubt all our family members would keep a bottle in the guest room and our coworkers would have one for us to use liberally as needed in the work place.
This stuff would sell itself. You wouldn’t even need to market it with “call in the next two minutes”, or be promised a double sized bottle or curly fry maker to get you to have it on hand.
I think Christmas joy and goodwill has all the potential in the world to be used the other 11 months of the year as well. The challenge is remembering that it IS readily available even though there is no bottle to look at on the shelf. All we need to do is look within ourselves.
I first became aware of this limited or seasonal usage and under utilization of Christmas Joy many years ago during a Christmas time trip to Coeur d’ Alene. I had taken my crew there for a fun holiday get away and a chance to experience all the awesome lights, decorations, and great food that CDA has to offer during Christmas. I woke up early on Sunday morning thinking about the brunch we were going to have later and how good it all is. The view over the lake was incredible and the snow layer was cold enough to have that squeaky sound coming from it when you walked on it. I decided to take a morning stroll on the docks and through the city streets. I wandered into one of the local stores that was just opening up for the day. As I was looking around I noticed a Tree of Sharing with a few names left on it. I plucked off a couple of the name cards and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Just a little background here, I have worked with toy acquisition for Operation Santa locally for over 20 years. In that time I have seen gift requests that you wouldn’t believe. That’s another story for another day.
Anyway, as I was looking at the requests from local kids in CDA I saw wish items like shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, stuff like that. I was completely puzzled by these requests. I asked the store guy what the deal was and he just casually said “oh, those are Children’s Village kids”. After a long chat I figured out that Children’s Village was a privately operated home for kids in the CDA area with no other options or places to live. The kids who are residents at Children’s Village (CV) are taught from an early age how to budget and manage their funds. They are given monthly allowances and are then responsible to provide to a certain extent for their own personal needs. The lesson is that if a kid spends all his or her allowance on movies or CD’s then they are probably going to be brushing their teeth with their finger for the next month. Kids are smart and I think we often under estimate their ability to reason. CV kids had figured out that for one month of the year most of us are exceedingly generous and abundant with kindness and giving. The resulting effect for them was receiving the huge Costco size triple shrink wrapped shampoo as a Christmas gift which in turn freed up their cash flow for other items of their own choosing for months to come. For these kids getting the shampoo and freeing up cash for what they like was a much safer gamble than the possible yellow or green sweater that you or I might get them based on our own sometimes dated tastes.
Kelly and I have been supporters of the Children’s Village effort ever since. I have never forgotten the deeper meaning and realization of my Sunday morning in CDA when I realized for the first time that exceeding kindness, patients, and generosity in our society can sometimes be all packaged into the same month each year leaving the other 11 months a little starved for the acts of goodness and compassion that make December such a stand out. Even little kids in CDA have figured this out.
For me, the positive energy that I put out in efforts to benefit others comes back to me in the form of pride, joy, happiness, and self fulfillment. These are all great flavors in life that can be enjoyed any month of the year just like adding a dash of that Worcestershire to the hamburgers in July or the chili in October.
Keeping a ready dose of Christmas time joy in your hearts for the entire year is my Christmas wish for all of you who are my friends and family. I sincerely hope that the joys of the season stay with you and yours as you enter into the New Year and beyond. I hope the New Year brings you lots of shampoo so you are free to spread your other blessings as you see fit on all the people and purposes in your lives that are important and rewarding to you. A good friend of mine once said “to live in abundance yourself, you must participate in abundance for others”. I’m a real believer in this statement and I believe its meaning was meant for more months of the year than December. I hope you enjoy and celebrate Christmas and all that it means in abundance for yourself and others. As you move into the New Year and the coming months, don’t forget where you keep your Christmas time Joy and Generosity just incase you or I need a shake or two to get that great flavor back in your life and the lives of those around.
In closing I would like to take a moment to pray for and reflect on our brothers and sisters in the military, our family, friends, and those dealing with hardships, and most recently the victims of the tragic shootings and all those affected by their loss. It is my hope that those who are grieving will be surrounded by evidence and true understandings of the sorrow, compassion, and loving support of a nation praying for their healing and strength at such a challenging time.
My family and I are grateful to all of you for your friendship and being in our lives. We are aware of and thankful for all the blessings we have received this past year and we know that without all of you these blessings would be far fewer and way less fun. We are truly fortunate.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and All the Best to you and yours in 2013.
EricW
