Pass It On!

The holidays are a time when most of us expect to have guest or be a guest.

Today, as you prepare for friends and family to visit or stay over night to bring in the New Year, put out your best towels.  Don’t look to make a big impression, but a big imprint on instead. 

Those new bath towels, the really soft fluffy ones that wrap the whole way around you, yeah you know the ones I’m talking about.  The ones you got for Christmas.  Today, take them out, unfold them from their spot in the closet and make them available to your guest. 

When we share our best, so do our guest.  So pass it on. 

When I was a teenage, I had a horse.  It was the most memorable time of my youth.   Today, due to lifestyle changes and a growing family I had to leave my horse behind, and I miss that cherish friend dearly. 

A few days ago, my family and I went to visit my husband’s family for a late Christmas party.  One of his cousins was kind enough to take me to a stable and meet her new pony.  It reminded me of those cherished times I had at her age of riding, caring for, and devotion.  It put an ache in my heart, but a good one.

Today, remember your youth.  Pull out the photo albums and share some of those endearing times with your children, your friends, or with your spouse.  Even if they have heard it all before, pass it on to another generation.  Or if you feel like being a lone today, just sit and allow your heart to open to the ache of lost love, sometimes when it comes from the horse’s mouth it makes remembering worth it all the more.

Every year my family draws names for Christmas.  This year my sister got my mom’s name and bought her a microwave.  My dad would have just taken the old microwave to the dump, most likely.  So I took it and brought it home and left it in the back of the family vehicle for the next time I passed our local thrift shop to donate it. 

Well, being a fellow freecycler, I saw a post the day before Christmas where a family had a desperate need for a microwave.  Now, mom and dad’s old microwave was about 10 years old and every once in a while it forget to heat your food, but it was better than no microwave at all, and that is percisely what the people thought when I contacted them and dropped off their “new” microwave.

They were estatic to have a microwave again.  Who can you make estatic today by fullfilling one of their needs?  It need not be someone you know, it can be a stranger with an ad in the paper needing help or a post on freecycle.org, but whoever it is you help, you’ll be sure to know they will remember you kindness and pass it on to someone else.

Life is an evolving circle, and when we least acknowledge it, it comes back to us in complete form.  So pass it on….

Today, my family and I made a day of going to our local Walmart to shop the after holiday clearance.  Two carts, three kids, and several hours later, we were happy to be home again, and a whole lot poorer then what we began in the morning. 

Store sales, especially clearance aisle have a way of making us pick up things we wouldn’t normally buy or need any other time, but when the price is right we grab it and take it home.  Then a few days later, we realize we have too much stuff and don’t know what to do with it.

As you are putting away your newly given gifts, piling up the old to be tossed, think of who could use the old, post it on yoru local freecycle or donate it to a chartiy, but pass it on.  Someone else, who could use it will be blessed by your kind offering, and you will have gotten rid of the old to make ready for the new.

Merry Christmas!

Today is a day we spend lounging around the Christmas tree and enjoying our family.  Some of us slave over dinner, while children run through the house playing with new toys, complements of Santa.  There are those of us, who spread Christmas cheer to others by remembering to help hand out stockings or meals to those less fortunate.  No matter how you choose to spend your day, Christmas is here.  Christmas is today.

Share the spirit of Christmas by inviting over an old friend, a family member long spoken too, or a neighbor who other wise would be spending this day alone.  Your generousity, kindness, and thoughfulness will be passed on through the person you have chosen.

 Happy Holidays.

Brrr… It’s cold.  Every afternoon, I say hello to the security guard who stands at our bus stop.  Snow or rain, as long as the buses are in transit and kids are coming home from school, this man stands to ensure their safety the best he can.  I have known him for a year now.  Not only can I tell you his name, what other jobs he holds, but his favorite activities too.

Today, on the last day of school before holiday vacation, I put together a simple package for him in appreciation for what he does.  As I got to the bus stop this afternoon, I saw him standing and doing the little dance people do when they are cold and trying to get warm.  I handed him the package.  It was a brown lunch bag, with a crayon drawing of a christmas tree my son made and I wrote “Merry Christmas” on the front.  Inside I placed a jar of cocoa mix and a plastic insulated travel mug.  

It occured to me, as I saw the shocked surpise on his face, that probably out of the hundreds of kids who got off the bus every afternoon, no one had ever thought to give him a gift, or even say thank you for what he does each day.   We give gifts to teachers, bus drivers, and the mail man. 

Who are you overlooking this year?  A simple card, a cup of hot joe, or something homemade, today pass on the spirit of Christmas to someone who is overlooked and not thought of often.  Is it a relative you haven’t spoken to for years?  The guy or gal who drops mail on your desk each morning, or perhaps it’s the attendent at the gas station who always washes your window.  Who ever they are, today is the day for you to pleasantly surprise them.

Each year my family gathers the Saturday before Christmas.  We exchange gifts, share favorite memories, and snack on the treats we all bring to share.  It’s a wonderful time, exspecially for all of our children who can’t wait for the gifts. 

This year 4 kids, 9 grandkids, we had a rip roaring time, right down the youngest one there ( only 3 months old).  So much that after all the presents were opened and kids ran through the house in glee, we all had to sit down and figure out who got what and in what color.  Talk about a chaotic gift exchange!!!  However, the kids were just so overwhelmed with getting about 6 gifts each and stockings to boot that the lost tracking of presents didn’t effect them, as long as they had a toy they were happy.

When everybody left, packages in tow, and we got home, my son noticed he was missing the injuried passanger of his ambulance toy.  He had the little paramedic figure, but not the guy with the broken arm.  He got upset.  He’d lost one his gifts, and we went on a search to find it, so much we had to call grandma to see if it got left behind.

Sometimes in our own lives, gifts are lost, and unless we realize we have lost them, they never get found.  What special gift do you possess?  Today, share your gift with someone else and pass it on.  If it’s singing, share a song.  If it’s painting, create a picture for a friend’s home.  If it’s listening, lend an ear.  You get the idea, it doesn’t have to come from within a store.

Our weatherman proudly reported we had received a full 7.3″ of snow yesterday.  I guess that’s what we get for living in a North Eastern State.  I don’t know about you, but there is just something about snow that always seems to put me into a festive mood right before Christmas. 

If you asked my husband what he wants for Christmas, he’s happy when he sees the white stuff laying on the ground. 

Recently, I heard Las Vegas got three inches and the entire place went into choas.  It was reported they hadn’t had snow in over two decades.  I’m sure it’ll all just be chalked up to global warming, but perhaps someone greater than us thought those people needed a little remaining of the seasonal cheer we get seeing the snow. 

If I could bottle it up and it would keep it’s form I’d send everyone I knew a little bit of winter cheer today, but since it would melt along the way, I’ve decided to share a picture of the snowman my son made with the family members I’ll see today so they may pass on the cheer and childish excitement winter brings.  Why don’t you try doing the same?

This morning as I woke up I was greeted by the fat flakes of snow falling outside my window.  Schools immediately began canceling and all day I watched as the snow covered our yard, the sidewalks, and the streets of where we live.  The entire community came to a stilted stand still at the sighting of the first real snow we have had this winter. 

I went out twice with my shovel and cleared our path and drive way.  The second time, my son came along with me, and as I tossed the snow into a large heap in our front yard, he began molding, patting, and shaping a snowman.  At his request, I sat in the snow with him after I’d finished my task and together we made a head, shaped a nose, added arms, and gave the snowman eyes and a mouth.

But he didn’t have a hat, or a scarf.  It upset my son so much, he gave this frosted ice creation his own hat and scarf because it was important to him. 

Tonight as I sit here in the warmth of our home, my children fast asleep, I look out at the snowman, wearing my son’s hat and scarf, and think of all the other people out there who in this cold winter weather are going without something so simple as a hat, a scarf, or even a pair of gloves.

So tonight, as I dig through my closets, I urge you to dig through yours, and if you have an extra coat, hat, scarf, or even a pair of gloves you don’t intend to use this season - pass them on to someone who needs them.

This evening, I sat and watched an old 1940’s movie Meet John Doe with my husband.  As we watched the movie, it reminded viewers of being a good neighbor.  Throughout the movie, the main character, John Doe, went around speaking and posing for media to promote this thing called “John Doe Clubs” where every citizen in every town in every state across the nation got to know their neighbor.  During his first speech, he said:

To most of you, your neighbor is a stranger, a guy with a barking dog and a fence around him. Now you can’t be a stranger to any guy who’s on your own team. So tear down that fence that separates you…You’ll tear down a lot of hate and prejudices…I know a lot of you are saying to yourself: ‘He’s asking for a miracle!’ …Well, you’re wrong. It’s no miracle!…I see it happen once every year at Christmas time…Why can’t that spirit last the whole year round? Gosh, if it ever did - we’d develop such a strength that no human force could stand against it. 

 Today, you are John Doe.  Stand up and greet your neighbor.  If the fence is too tall, a little scary, that’s OK - you can go around it.