It Pays to Listen

I know the holiday season is over, but I've been thinking the past few weeks about one of my favorite  stories.  It came to mind on Christmas Day, as I was talking to my niece Mikaela.  I reminded her of the Christmas when no one chose to believe her.

It was about a decade ago, and Mom wanted to give me a pair of black slacks.  Everyone said they were nice, but Mikaela, who was the baby of the family then, spoke up, saying, "Grandma, they're green."

Well, we naturally chuckled at her.  After all, she was a child.  What did she know?  "No Mikaela, they're black."  We were adults.  We knew what was right.

Very politely, Mikaela informed us they were green.  Again, we told her they were black.  Silly child!

She tried again to tell us they were green.  One more we told her she was wrong.  Finally, without saying a word, she plucked them from my hands, walked over to the window, and held them to the light.

Son of a gun.  They were green.

When I reminded Mikaela of this last month, she was flabbergasted, saying, "How rude!"  I pointed out to her that we were the rude ones, blowing her off due to her age, while she constantly was polite, finally proving her point without saying a word.  I told her it was not only beautiful the way she did it, it's my favorite 'Mikaela story,' even though I was one of those proven wrong.

It goes to show that we should never doubt children, as they generally have something to say. Mikaela certainly did that day.  And had we listened to her the first time and paid closer attention, none of us would have had to apologize to her. 

As for me, I made out like a bandit.  Mom so wanted to give me a pair of black slacks, the following day--one of the worst shopping days of the year--she went out and bought me a pair.  So Mikaela continued to assist me.

Now if she'd just go back to making my snickerdoodles.

Caught At Christmastime

In regards to my last blog, someone pointed out I took the gist of it from one of my favorite Christmas films, The Bishop's Wife.  I admitted this was true, as it's a wonderful lesson, albeit from a motion picture.

Peter Falk and Valerie Bertinelli in
'Finding John Christmas'

Many of our films having to do with Christmas have outstanding lessons, whether or not we pay attention to them.  Take Miracle On 34th Street and 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.'  Both deal with the way we have allowed the holiday to be so commercialized, forgetting the real meaning of Christmas.  And the latter has the most inspirational scene in a Christmas film when Linus explains the real meaning of the holiday to Charlie Brown under the spotlight as everyone is as quiet as a church mouse.

It's A Wonderful Life is considered a Christmas film, and lets us know we are not alone, although we often think we are.  The inscription Clarence writes in the book he leaves for George sums it all up.

3 Godfathers is an overlooked Christmas Western, telling of the Three Wise Men put in the West, as they care for an orphaned newborn.  It's a terrific look at the birth of the Christ Child, and a wonderful look at responsibility and keeping one's word, no matter the cost.

The Man Who Came To Dinner is a hilarious look at an extremely gruff man who intercedes in others' lives, even when they often don't want him to.  Although he comes across as a grouch, we as the audience see that he does care for people, but doesn't want them to realize it.  We learn that people aren't as they seem to be.

As I stated last year, my favorite Christmas films are a trilogy made for television:  'A Town Without Christmas,' 'Finding John Christmas,' and 'When Angels Came to Town.'  They have two things in common--Peter Falk as the angel Max, and letting us know there is someone who cares for us, even when we think we are all alone in this world.  Never have I been able to watch one of these with dry eyes.

So, as the holiday approaches and we remember the Reason we celebrate Christmas, I hope you enjoy a few of these.  Maybe you'll see a few of the lessons in the films and find a few others.  If you do, please let me know. 

In the meantime, Merry Christmas.

The Empty Stocking

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone.  Many of us have started on our Christmas shopping.  Some who plan for the future have even finished it, and begun on next year's. 

We know that Aunt Martha wants a new purse, while Cousin Henry needs a webcam.  Your daughter is impossible to shop for, so she gets a Wal Mart gift card, and so forth.  The presents bought and wrapped, you mail a few, and put the rest under the tree for now.

But what goes in the empty stocking on the mantle?

You don't have an empty stocking?  You should.  You see, families have stockings for each and every member:  You, me, Grandpa, Aunt Minerva, Uncle Fess, Cousin Henry, but very few of us ever remember to leave another stocking for the One whose birthday we celebrate.  And when you think about it, He received the first Christmas presents.  So why should that change now?

What are you giving Jesus for his birthday this year?  Your first thought is He has everything, being the Son of God, but everyone should get something for their birthday.  Think about it.  Give Him a gift, and when you contemplate, you'll know it won't be able to match what He has brought us, but He won't care.  He just likes to open packages.  Your time is something He really likes.  Give to your church or a charitable foundation in His name.

Your Christmas shopping isn't done yet.  Put something in His stocking this year.  Don't let it be empty.

Mizpah.

Christmas & Technology

Life is a lot like the old Virgina Slims ads.  Y'know, "You've come a long way, baby."  But there are certain times when one has to wonder if progress is really . . . well, progress.  We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle, communicating via machines (just as we are now) that we forget that communication via the spoken word is something special.  Here's an interesting example:

Now this is well done, has humor in it and is cute.   But it takes all the personal touches out of the story.  I seriously doubt the creator of this video meant that, but that's what technology is doing.

You want a personal touch to the story?  It's hand-drawn, more than likely memorized by many of us, and will be remembered long after most of us are gone.  I've mentioned it already, but one can never talk about it enough.

But you know what?  In the long run, I guess it doesn't matter as both get the point across.  This is the time we celebrate the birth of our Savior, and that is joyous reason for celebration.  It doesn't matter if you're getting the message via iPod or from Linus, as long as the message continues to be spread:  Let's continue to pass it along.

Merry Christmas Everyone.                         
                                                                                                   

Johnny Mandel Is A Liar

It has long been believed that suicides rise among those who are alone during the Christmas season.  This is an urban legend and has been disproven by those at http://www.suicideinfo.ca/ .  As a matter of fact, suicide rates have actually dropped during the holidays. 

Why?  The answers are relatively simple. 

1) During the holidays, vulnerable people are around friends and family.  There is a sense of protection.

2) Celebrations around the community remind people of fond memories, hope, and perhaps a renewed outlook.

3) There is an increased awareness of safety-nets such as food banks, shelters and outreach programs during this particular time of year.


There are things to watch for during the holiday season:  Loneliness, depression, feelings of loss, financial burdens, problems with the family, alcohol abuse - all of these can intensity during the holidays.

Tips for Coping:

1)  Plan ahead.  Take time to identify your feelings about Christmas.

2)  Be realistic with what you can afford to give.

3)  Choose to celebrate with those who make you feel positive and hopeful.

4)  Let go of your expectations and make time for what is important for you.

The theme for the movie M*A*S*H, written by Johnny Mandel, is entitled "Suicide Is Painless."  Mr. Mandel is a boldfaced liar as it hurts not only the individual, but everyone who knows them.  What could they have done to prevent it?

If you know of anyone suffering from depression, don't just be around them at Christmas time.  Ensure they have someone around them, letting them know people care for them on a daily basis.  It's a simple task, and one that just might allow them to live to a ripe old age.  And you just might be able to celebrate another Christmas with them.
                                                              

How Do I Know It's Christmastime?

Every year, sometimes even before Thanksgiving, Christmas carols blare from the loudspeakers in the stores.  You hear renditions of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" that would make Gene Autry cringe, and versions of "Frosty the Snowman" that have Jimmy Durante rolling in his grave.  I'm dreading the rap version of "Silent Night". 

There is one tune, however, that has yet to be changed.  It's been around for fifty-five Christmases, and the one time they fiddled with it,  people raised so much havoc, within a day, the original was back.  The revised version has never been heard from since, nor will it ever.

 So what is this tune?  It's an Oklahoma City jewelry store advertisement.  The B.C. Clark Jingle.  It begins running the day after Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas Eve.  We Okies know that Christmas is around the corner once we hear The Jingle.

Santa riding a sleigh to
the tune of the
B.C. Clark Jingle

The lyrics are simple:


Jewelry is the gift to give,                                                

'Cause it's the gift that'll live and live.
So give the gift you know can't fail
From B.C. Clark's Annivers'ry Sale!

Most sales are after Christmas,

But Clark's is just before.

'Most everything is marked way down-

Savings you can't ignore

             

At Oklahoma's oldest jeweler-

Since eighteen-ninety-two.

So give the gift you know can't fail-

From B.C. Clark's Annivers'ry Sale!

You would be amazed how many people all around the United States who have lived in Oklahoma at one time or another know the lyrics to this little tune.  Many people sing along to it when it airs on the radio or television.  In many ways, it has become the Oklahoma Anthem.  It is a commercial we look forward to seeing, as it reminds us of Christmas.  It's an annual tradition, like family get-togethers and caroling.  We love it, and they don't over-saturate us with it.  Just enough to please us.

B.C. Clark knows how popular The Jingle has become, and sells it on CD. Want to send it to someone in the military?  Then it's free.  They've set up a website for The Jingle where you can download it to your cell phone or print up the sheet music.  Clark's has an official Facebook page just for The Jingle.  It has been sung on 'The Tonight Show' by Megan Mullally.  There are countless versions of it on You Tube.  Silly?  Not at all.  It merely unifies people with a common like, in that we all love that little ditty.  You can talk about a particular song, and I'll go, "Huh?"  And you'll do the same on a song I'll bring up.  But ask anyone from Oklahoma about The Jingle, and they'll know immediately what you're talking about.

We know it's Christmastime here in Oklahoma, thanks to B.C. Clark.

http://www.facebook.com/thejingle          http://www.bcclarkjingle.com/history   

                       

Experiences With Angels

We generally think of Christmas as a wonderful time, but for many, it's sad, as with the year ending, they begin to reflect upon what they are without.  This being the case, for them Christmas is a lonely time and they hate it.  It makes the holiday season a very busy time for the angels.

Yes, I believe in angels.  I think they're a lot like Max, whom I wrote about in an earlier blog http://goodolthisanthat.blogspot.com/2010/12/bestest-christmas-movies-ever.html . I think they're a touch crafty, using their imagination in order to get the job done.  They have to be, as if they showed up in robes and wings, people would be thinking, "I thought I took my medication, not acid!" and run the other way. 


Henry Travers as Clarence in It's A Wonderful Life


Some might be like It's A Wonderful Life's Clarence in that they might appear to be absent-minded and bumbling, but come up with the most brilliant of ideas.  We laugh at them, thinking they are incompetent, and they go along with us.  Yet they get the job done.

We use the term 'angel' quite a bit in our lives.  We see a baby girl and "Oh, she's such an angel."  "Your mother had the job of raising you?  She must have been an angel." 

I have been in the presence of actual angels twice in my life that I know of.  If I have any other times, I haven't been aware of it.  But then, they don't blow trumpets and say, "Look at me!  I'm an angel!"  They just do their jobs and go on . . . like Max.

The first time I was too young to know about.  My family has told me this story.  It was December of 1964. I was ten months old and spending my first Christmas in the hospital.  Mom and Dad were rotating twelve hour shifts watching over me.  I was in one of the wards, and children were dying all around me.  I had a heckuva fever, was dehydrated (All the kids were) and convulsions.  Mom and Dad wondering if I'd be next.  One particular night, everyone knew it was this little girl's turn.  She was too far gone.  Dad was sitting up with me, and in the middle of the night, that little girl's father approached Dad and told him, "I just want you to know I'm praying for your little boy."

If you think that didn't affect Dad, you're mistaken.  Think about it.  That man's daughter was dying that night - and he was praying for me?  Makes not one iota of sense, does it?  It had Dad thoroughly confused, to say the least.  But that man's unselfish comment got Dad to thinking, and it led to a change that wound up affecting not only my father, but my family.  And my parents have wound up ministering to thousands of people over the years.  So think about how many people that one comment affected.

That little girl left the hospital with a clean bill of health before I did.  You cannot tell me she and her father were not angels sent there to change our family's lives.  I do not know their names, what they looked like, but don't tell me they weren't angels.

Flash forward forty-two years.  I was working in retail at Academy Sports.  This particular store was built on a hill.  (Please remember this.  It's essential to the story.)  We had been robbed several months before shortly after closing and were preparing to shut down  for the night.  It was a week before Christmas, and business had been brisk.  I was rounding up the last of the shopping carts.  I noticed a man sitting in his car.  He'd been there for a while and had never come in to shop.  I was worried he was going to rob us and let my boss know about him. 

As I finished getting the carts lo and behold, out comes another.  This one had a baby in it.  Okay.  I'll come back for it.  Behind me, I heard yet a second cart .  Strange.  No one else left the store that I saw.  Oh well.  I went back out to get the woman's cart and saw the man getting into his car, then drive away.  The woman told me what had happened:

For the first time ever, she put her merchandise in her car first, instead of her child.  The cart started rolling down the hill, and would have gone all the way to the Northwest Expressway, which of course had a ton of traffic.  Without a word, the man got out of the car, stopped the cart, and pushed it back to her.  Then he got back to his car and simply drove away.  I let her know that he'd never come into the store.  He'd been there only to save her child. "Ma'am," I said, "That man was an angel."  She agreed, and said her child would come to know this story.  I hope (and would wager) she's kept that promise.

When I got into the store, I told my boss and co-workers what had happened.  Our supposed 'suspicious character' was not what he was supposed to be.  (Oh, the apology I owed that man.)  When I said I thought he was an angel, I expected some snide remarks, as retail is a skeptical business.  Instead, I was told by everyone there, "You might be right."  I know I was.

These experiences come to mind this time of year, as they were my Christmas Angels.  They were my Clarences, my Maxes.  They let me know not to get skeptical, not to forget the small miracles as letting someone knowing you're praying for them or pushing a shopping cart can affect lives.

Merry Christmas.

Have We Forgotten?

Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Wood, and Maureen
O'Hara in Miracle On 34th Street

Miracle On 34th Street is considered to be one of the greatest Christmas movies ever.  People always say it makes them believe in Santa Claus all over again.  For the length of the film, we're all a child again, getting into the Spirit of Christmas, as George Seaton's movie takes a hit at the commercialism that we've let Christmas become.

Over the years, we've somehow let it be thought that the picture is about Santa.  He's the main character, but the movie is about having faith.  Faith is an important aspect in life, and that is what Kris Kringle teaches to Doris and Susan, who've been leading lives of pessimism.  By the film's end, due to meeting Kris, they have both realized to accentuate the positive.

Another classic Christmas film is 1965's "A Charlie Brown Christmas".  It also deals with the commercialism that has sprung from the holiday, and Charlie Brown is the only one who is sickened by it.  Yet at the same time, he doesn't understand why we celebrate Christmas, and Linus, the wise sage of the group, explains it to everyone around.  It is a classic moment in television history. 

The only reason that scene made it into the show was Charles Schulz's insistence.  When CBS saw the finished special, they shrugged, saying, "Well, we don't have anything else."  Forty-five years later, despite the fact it's a huge seller on DVD, it is still a ratings winner ever December.

Interestingly, both of these films that attacked commercialism are now objects of it.  I don't mean the DVDs, but there are dolls dealing with both films.  Same with Christmas ornaments.  Look at all the books dealing with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" you see in the stores every year.  At first, we think it's cute, but then we realize . . . They just didn't get the meaning of the shows.

Charlie Brown would be appalled.

So Sue Me

This is the time of year when my friends, family, co-workers, and complete strangers all say the same thing to me:  "I hate you."  (I bet you thought it was going to be "Merry Christmas," didn't ya?")

I have to say I earn it.

No, I don't walk around like the Grinch with a piece of coal in my heart, and I don't sing 'Silent Night' off-key.  (At least, not intentionally.)

It's just that I finished my Christmas shopping.

Last month.

Generally, I'm finished around July, but this has been a rough year for me.  I've already received several e-mails from people who've received packages stating, "What do you mean, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS?"  True, they did get them mid-November, but there is no way on God's Green Earth I'm tackling the Post Office in mid-December.  Not for anyone or anything.  (They should have been among the crowd I sent packages out to in July with that message out to on them.  Oh, the nasty messages I received!)

Now, I work in a busy store.  I see the 'fun' in Christmas shopping.  About as much 'fun' as emergency surgery.  That's why 95% of my shopping was online. Search, click, and zip.  Hide it in the closet, and hopefully remember that it's there.  (I need to follow Mom's example and start keeping items listed in a notebook.  One year my nephew Jordan really had a bonanza due to my poor memory.  Hey, he didn't mind!)

But as we all get tied up with gift-giving and what Aunt Hilda is going to want, we don't necessarily tie in our gifts to the individuals.  I have fun doing so. I buy Christmas all year round, and already have one family member covered for next year.

Contact me for lessons.