Posts tagged “Christmas”
December 29, 2015 No comments

A Marlowe Christmas

Christmas Presents

We had a wonderful Christmas. Like in many households, we have the common practice of unwrapping one present at a time, then another. Sometimes each unwrapping is punctuated by individualized explanatory gratefulness:

“Oh this is perfect … what I’ve always wanted!”

“Oh how wonderful and beautiful …!”

“Oh my, you shouldn’t have …!”

Sometimes someone will even get out of their seat or chair, step and reach over and give someone a hug and kiss. Tell them “I love you.” Tell them “this means a lot.” But then it soon goes to the next present. And the next. And the next. Then the next.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Then it’s over.

But not with my 2 ½ year-old-grandson Marlowe.

This Christmas he had a small mountain of gifts. The first was a 5” plastic green Tyrannosaurus Rex. It could have come from the Dollar Store but no matter. He didn’t really know who it was from, but that was no matter either.

All Marlowe knew was that it was the most wonderful, fun and fantastic of all gifts ever imaginable!

Any lack of personal gratitude was offset by Marlowe’s perfect and complete enjoyment of this simple piece of wonder…

He was thoroughly and perfectly engrossed in the joy of a 5” plastic green Tyrannosaurus Rex who was now – with the help of Marlowe’s inexhaustible imagination – greedily cannibalizing a bowl of sweets, bravely defending himself against attacks from candles and ornaments, and confidently challenging any and all imaginary threats.

Marlowe’s T-Rex held dominion over the Johnson living room coffee table all Christmas morning.

Marlowe was so caught up with the joy and ecstasy of one simple gift, he didn’t seem to need another. The Christmas morning ended with many of Marlowe’s presents still wrapped.

We can learn a lot from Marlowe.

Most of the time we accept gifts. Perhaps we even take the time to express thanks. But before we even have time to enjoy one gift we’re off looking for something else. Looking for another present to unwrap.

Never fully benefitting from the wonder of any one thing, we look to unwrap something new.

We should all be more like Marlowe. When a gift comes we should revel in it. Lose ourselves in it. Forget about “what’s next” and enjoy “what’s there.”

That is the true spirit of Christmas.

 

 

Image: Christmas Presents by Ravi Shah (CC license 2.o)
December 25, 2008 No comments

The Spirit of Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Did you get the “Christmas spirit” this year?  Yes?  Well what kind of spirit was that?  I’m just checking cause a lot of what I see out there doesn’t synch with my idea of the Christmas spirit.  So just for fun I typed in “Christmas” into Google News this morning.  Here’s a sampling of what I found:

The Queen’s annual Christmas talk was one of a “sombre” Christmas that, according to Her Majesty, conjures “feelings of uncertainty.”

“Hallelujah!” “Joy to the World!”

Paris Hilton’s Christmas spirit took the form of a pink Bentley.

“Away in a manger … no crib for a bed ..!”

According to reports, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called Jews animals will say Jesus, if alive today, would be against bullying, ill-tempered nations.  (Someone needs to tell him that Jesus was a Jew)

“Peace on earth, good will toward men.”

Google, with a gazillion dollars in market cap and sitting on billions in cash, canceled its Christmas bonus and instead will give its employees a cell phone.

“I have no gifts for him pur-um-pa-pum-pum … Me and my drum.”

The annual Disney parade will be hosted by Ryan Secrest and Matt Dallas, star of the television program in which he plays Kyle who has the 2008 version of the “virgin birth” … a boy without an umbilical cord and belly button living inside a chamber, until he woke up in the middle of a forest covered in pink fluid.”

“Oh come, let us adore him.”

There was the guy who dressed up as Santa and massacred people.  There was the WalMart shoppers who trampled to death the poor soul chosen to open the doors to the store.  And indeed, most stories were about shopping, retail, and sales.  So much that one story retold the quote from Bill O’Reilly who said in 2005 that, “Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born.  Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

Not the spirit of Christmas that I know.

“Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people” … “For unto you a child is born.  Unto you a son is given.”

Have a Merry Christmas.
December 24, 2008 No comments

Watch Out … They’re Fading Fast

It is the day before Christmas and there’s still shopping to do.  What to buy?

A watch?  Huh?  I say that because I open up the Washington Post on the Monday before Christmas and every other page is a full page ad — a FULL PAGE — of nothing but watches.  OK.  A full page ad isn’t as much as it used to be.  But still.  That is some heavy spend.  All for something that fewer and fewer people seem to use.

What is it with Christmas and watches?

They still make nice gifts, right?  Ask John Mayer.  He reportedly gives Rolexes to (some) of the women he gets “romantically involved” with (I think that means he is having sex with them).

But not everyone is John Mayer.   And watches seem to be going the way of the buggy whip, particularly among young people (the object of my shopping for today).

Here’s a snippit from a story written a year ago by Martha Irvine of the Associated Press

In a survey last fall, investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. found that nearly two-thirds of teens never wear a watch — and only about one in 10 wears one every day.

Experian Simmons Research also discovered that, while Americans spent more than $5.9 billion on watches in 2006, that figure was down 17 percent when compared with five years earlier.

Why buy a watch when a cell phone will do?  Apparently it is a sentiment widely shared.  I read in the New York Times that 2009 isn’t looking good for our Swiss friends.  Is time is running out?  Will the watch make a comeback?  Will, as some claim, the watch have to turn it into some Dick Tracey type multi-function device in order to survive?

Too late!  The smart phone got there first.  I think I’ll go buy one of them.  Then again, it we are in a recession and the kids already have a phone.  I think I’ll buy (another) book.

Merry Christmas!