january 1

“The sweet fragrance of a fresh new year.”

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

 

 

“The only real blind person at Christmastime is he who has not Christmas in his heart.”

 

~ Helen Keller

   

Helen Keller has been one of my heroes since I was a young girl. For someone who started her young life barely able to communicate with anything beyond touch, she was one of the truly wisest people about human nature that I ever encountered. I know when you are lacking in at least one sense, the other ones take over. But her perception of people and intelligence about them far surpassed most people I know today. This is just another one of those gems.

 

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.”

 

~Andy Rooney

   

As soon as I saw this, I was transported back in time to my childhood. We always had to do a massive clean-up before Christmas Eve. My father would meticulously set up the presents under the tree. We weren’t allowed to touch them in the morning outside of peeking at tags along the edge. But then we would dive in to our unwrapping and rotation and the stuff would go everywhere. At some point, of course we had to clean it up, but it was more fun to let it all set for a while. As we got older, that mess became less and less until it became a distant memory with a bit of nostalgia. You can’t get that back. So grit your teeth and enjoy the mess while it lasts. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.

 

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others.”

 

~Bob Hope

   

I love Bob Hope. I grew up watching him on TV and in movies as a family favorite. My parents really admired him and passed that admiration on to me and my sister. And I just love this quotation from him. The true meaning of Christmas is all about love. That’s something that hasn’t changed over time and never should change.

 

“I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t want to waste it so I just wrote ‘Jesus’ on it.”

~ Demetri Martin

   

Been there done that! LOL. And actually, I have memories of actually doing this on purpose when we accidentally ran out of Christmas wrapping paper. How does one do that? Well, I am ashamed to say that I have done so quite easily from time to time. I haven’t yet mastered that art of having too much on hand like my parents always did. I may have mentioned before that my mother would occasionally just give up and put it all in a bag and we would go “fishing” inside of it. Of course, we were much older at that point. What silly goofs have you made during the holiday season?