I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and wonderful extended weekend. We hope you will be able to take some time away from work and the challenges of the world to reflect and relax. I know that for many in the service, military, police, and other industries you may have to work on Christmas day.
In my early twenties working for a manufacturing plant, our shift tended to start in the evening of the holiday. It was difficult getting fully into the holiday spirt knowing I would have to work through the night. I can understand what it must feel like for those who must work on Christmas.
Christmas, much like the New Year’s Eve/Day are major milestone dates for those of us in the United States. We tend to spend time with our family and loved ones, exchanging gifts, and eating more than our share of food and sweets.
Reflecting on Christmas Past
I tend to reflect how far I have come personally in my life journey. I look back a year, sometimes five, and sometimes forty, reminiscing about my life and how things have turned out for me. I can remember early childhood experiences as my brother and I could not sleep on Christmas Eve, anticipating Santa Clause bringing us presents. It was a magical time for me that I was able to carry forward with my daughters.
I have memories of watching several holiday related shows each year. Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and The Grinch that Stole Christmas come to mind.
These memories fortunately are pleasant and I feel grateful my single mother did the best should could to raise my brother and me. I am fortunate that there is no Ebenezer Scrooge and Christmas Carol related dreams (or nightmares) for me. Maybe that is still to come in my life.
Reflecting on Christmas Present
This Christmas will be spent quietly in our home, just Dianne and me. Later that evening we will go to her parent’s home for a nice dinner.
We have so many moving parts in our lives right now that have been occupying much of our time. We are working on inspection items of our current home, remodeling our new downsized townhouse, and planning to move the first week of January.
I also have to finish our accounting and corporate tax reports that are due by the end of January for our rental properties. I tend to stay within one month of current – so this should not be too difficult.
Reflecting on Christmas Future
I also imagine what life will be like perhaps one, five, or ten years from now.
We are only a couple weeks of being completely debt free. I know that projecting ahead to next Christmas we will have gone on 2 cruises, camped 20 plus nights, and I will have visited family in Colorado at least five times. We will have completely remodeled our downsized home and might eliminate one of our cars.
Five years from now, we will have gone on a 110-day World Cruise.
What and where we will be ten years from now is hard to say. I am hopeful that we are healthy, our children are doing well, and our parents are still alive.
Peace, Love, and Joy to all
It is too bad that we all can’t get along. Seeing the recent terrorist acts in Paris and San Bernardino in the news, I often wonder if the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
Why can’t we all just get along?
Maybe we need to start the process first with ourselves and project joy and happiness to all those we encounter. To steal Stephen Covey’s habit #5: Seek first to understand, then be understood. Is it possible to for us to take the time to understand people first before we begin to judge and categorize them in our neat mental folders?
Maybe we need to follow the golden rule. No, I am not talking about “those with the Gold – rule”!
This is the golden rule that states “Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets”[29] (Matthew 7:12 NCV). What if all our positive and negative actions had an immediate response that equaled our behavior toward others? It might change the way we treat people.
Maybe we need more humor in our lives. To end on a funny note, for those who have never heard this before, check out Cheech & Chong’s take on Santa Clause.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night – ho ho ho!
Photo Copyright : sergo