A Gallup report from the week of December 4-11 reveals that eight in ten of us are stressed, and cites that the biggest sources of stress are work and children. Then come the holidays, when stress seems to go into hyper-drive. But Christmas is not an “extra” though or something we need to “get through.” Holidays are important for our families. They […]
This year on Christmas Eve, each of us who wish to show that Christ is welcome in our homes, should join together in placing a single candle in the front window of their home. This tradition began centuries ago and it is worth remembering and sharing this wonderful custom. The candle shining in the […]
Charles Dicken’s classic celebrates the hospitality, and generousity of spirit Scrooge finds following his Christmas Eve adventure with the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. He is a man changed. God Bless us, Everyone. Stave 5 is perhaps my favorite Christmas reading of all. Stave 5 Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The […]
“I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel. I just don’t understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards, and decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy. I always […]
This sobering tale by Hans Christian Anderson tells of both the cruelty of the world and the hope of mankind. A must read at the holidays or anytime to remind us to care for others. Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening– the last evening of the year. In […]
by Hans Christian Andersen. Out in the woods stood such a pretty little fir tree. It grew in a good place, where it had plenty of sun and plenty of fresh air. Around it stood many tall comrades, both fir trees and pines. The little fir tree was in a headlong hurry to grow up. […]
The Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such […]
Yes, Virginia … Editorial of The New York Sun, 1897 Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s […]
In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore a wrote the poem Twas the night before Christmas also called “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
Our lives are about choices, either conscious or unconscious. But what if we curate our lives? What if we choose, organize and care for our lives enough to be purposeful and intentional about daily living? What if we treated each day as the inedible gift that it is? Simple Gifts is about a journey toward a curated life.
Simple Gifts 