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HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Jim

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/nZZBn7zZBKM

or read his true Christmas story below:

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

One of my favorite true Christmas stories came to me from a friend, the late Belle Stoddard.

Here’s how it goes:

When Gedney Howe was a little boy, his favorite companion was an elderly neighbor everybody simply called, “Frasier.”

Frasier loved Gedney and was often making toys for him or giving him other presents.

One day, Frasier proudly presented Gedney with a beautiful, most unusual type of seashell.

Everyone was impressed, especially the child. Gedney’s grandfather, Chief, recognized the shell as one that could be found only on Edisto Island, a very long way from where they lived in Charleston.

Chief asked, “Why, Frasier, however did you find this here in town?”

Frasier patiently explained that he had not gotten the shell in town. He had found it on the island. Back then, there was little private–and no public–transportation available.

Chief asked whether Frasier had caught a ride.

“No, sir, I walked all the way and back.”

Chief exclaimed, in amazement, “Why that must’ve been fifty miles.”

“Well,” Frasier said, “I caught a ride part way, but the long walk was part of the gift.”

***

This is the kind of story that sticks with me and re-surfaces every Christmas.

I suppose it resonates because my mother always monitored my attitudes about giving and receiving. She made sure we kids understood that the act of giving, the effort and care expended in gift-searching, gift-wrapping, gift-offering, were all part and parcel of the gift itself.

Mom had no tolerance for anyone who complained about the quality or price or brand-name or appropriateness of a gift received.

To this day, each time I am presented a gift, I hesitate before removing the wrapping. I re-imagine Mother’s lesson about gifts, Frasier’s lesson about gifts.

I try to imagine what must have gone through the mind of the giver. I try to appreciate the fact that receiving a gift at all is somewhat miraculous, considering all the people in all the world who are not being remembered and gifted this Christmas.

In the altar of my mind, I hold the unopened gift up to the beaming faces of Santa and Mother and Frasier and everybody else who remembers with love somebody besides themselves on special occasions.

Then, all ceremony aside, I return to earth and tear into the package, looking for the object that represents the gift-giver’s kindness and generosity.

And here’s my gift to you:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

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SNUG ADRIFT

Posted on December 16, 2018 by Jim

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/3oCy52E3YA0

or read his tale below…

SNUG ADRIFT

When you are snug abed and attempting to sleep the nearly-longest night of the year…

When you begin to drift raftless through the years and years of holidays gone past, holidays gone dim, holidays occasionally bright and warm and layered with the carnival-design colors and trappings that kids love and cherish and hold their breaths over…

When you are in this special place invisible to all but you yourself…

I hope you will take a moment to remember the best Christmas or holiday you ever ever ever had…allow yourself to slip into it and dream the sweet sweet dreams of a four-year-old who just knows that every kindly fable and each and every sweet tale every adult ever told any kid is absolutely true and verifiable if just for that one moment when the tale is first told.

I hope this remembrance of times past brings a comfortable smile to your lips.

For one sweet moment, I hope you simply defy reality and become a safe, secure and happily sugarplummed child…

And try your best to recall YOU—the once and future real you—and how you once were and how you still are, somewhere deep deep deep down inside

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THE BLESSING OF SHINY QUARTERS

Posted on December 9, 2018 by Jim

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/El8ACxbJImY

or read his tale below…

THE BLESSING OF SHINY QUARTERS

“Bless your heart,” somebody just pronounced, at the vacated table. The eatery is bustling with noisy diners, and a rather rowdy bunch is waiting for the bussers and servers to clear the surface, or at least redistribute the grease evenly so that the source of subsequent sepsis cannot be traced.

The Bless Your Heart employee is addressing the grand tip of four quarters the previous gluttoneers set adrift on the placemat. She is not amused.

The Bless Your Heart muttering is a form of automatic censure. This longtime denizen of chaotic kitchens and foot-bruising tiled floors and bossy bosses and entitled customers knows how to suppress what she really wants to say until she can grab a smoke next to the dumpster out back. The words will not be as pretty as Bless Your Heart, but they will be honest and direct and heartfelt and delivered in philosophical resignation.

Later in the long shift, at clock out time, the Bless Your Heart woman will stop by Dollar Tree and pick up a few Christmas trinkets to the tune of at least twenty-four quarter tips, wend her way home to her basement apartment that sports a wreath-decked front door and, within, a small musical Christmas Tree with twinkling lights.

She slides the chain lock in place, groans a bit during shoe removal, slips into a so-soft robe, examines the contents of a refrigerator that holds no surprises, retrieves half a quart of eggnog, then sits lengthways on a caressing sofa, takes a sip while regarding the twinkling tree, looks forward to turning the Dollar Tree bag contents into something that will make her lone grandchild smile and laugh and clap her hands in love.

The cares of the day loosen their hold, the memories of childhood Christmases loom sweetly, the echoes of distant family and friends diminish, and for just a moment, just a moment, the world takes time to bless her heart

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I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS)

Posted on December 2, 2018 by Jim

Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/yObzgoxFCo8

or read his story below…

I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS)

Join me in my travels, back to yesteryear, when the world was just a dreamy landscape existing solely for the purposes of childhood…

When you believe something so strongly, so unrelentingly, so innocently, that your behavior defies all logic, all convention, all common sense, all cynicism…when you really truly believe something, then you have the gift of purity that can only be defiled by an unkind word a thoughtless gesture or one moment of insensitivity.

Remember when you believed so deeply in Santa Claus that you would confide only in him—in him only—your innermost desires?

Remember when you believed so deeply in the omnipotence and honesty of Santa that not only did you confide in him your wishes, but you at the same time, honoring the magic secret between yourself and the old elf, would not, dared not, could not, tell anyone else your secret—not even your parents?

Remember what it was like to keep such a tightly held secret so pure that, because your parents did not know what you and Santa had discussed, you therefore did not receive on Christmas morn the gift you wanted?

Remember how you never blamed Santa Claus for not bringing the gift you desired, since Santa did, after all, tell you that he’d try his best but couldn’t promise? You looked the other way on behalf of Santa because he was sacred, he was honest, he bore no grudges, he did no evil, he was, you know, Santa Claus, after all.

How long has it been since you believed in something that powerfully? And isn’t it amazing that because you held those beliefs as a child, Santa still has some power over you?

All logic, all evidence aside, you still want to believe in Santa Claus and the idea of Santa Claus…and somewhere deep deep inside you, don’t you think you do still believe in him?

Because if you ever stopped believing in such wonderful ideas, wouldn’t the world do its final bit of perishing in the heart, and wouldn’t the world just be another planet in the technical and mathematical universe, bereft of all soul and heart and sincerity and just full of cold debris and detritus floating around with no particular purpose?

Santa is the glue of the hopeful universe—Santa and his counterparts deep in the beings of children since time began