New Year - New Beginning

I love New Years. Not just because it's fun and noisy and puts you in a mood to celebrate and anticipate the joys and blessings of the coming year. I like it for it's reflective moments - when you stop to think on the past year and all that came with it. I like it for its moments of decision to put the past behind and with it hurts, misunderstandings and sad times, and look forward to the things which are before with new hope, renewed vision, inspiration and resolution to try better. I love it for the moments of thankfulness for all the good and even bad if it helped us grow, made us wiser and expanded our horizons.

I love it because children will not make this day pass as a haw-hum day! They will draw the best out of you - you will become a child in their company!

It makes me feel warm and loved in the fellowship of my friends. Strangely, in latter years, I never seem to know who my New Year companions will be. Some arrange their New Year's celebrations and make plans (as I used to), but now I kind of leave it untouched, in the Lord's hands to set out the event for me - including everything: the choice of friends, dishes, drinks, decorations, agenda, etc.

And each year I learned to flow with occasions when circumstances are beyond my control.
It so happened that my husband wasn't able to spend the passing year and welcome the new one in our company. So, my immediate and only companions were my dear children and a couple of old friends.

Instead of letting the feeling of sadness have its way with us by regretting the fact that Daddy was away, we chose to enjoy the moment and flow with the event! It was excellent in its spontaneity!

Lovely Christmas!

We have invited some close friends and associates to share with us a simple beautiful Christmas event. This year we did it differently. Each one pitched in with something they had on their heart to give to the 'common pot' of gifts to Jesus and each other.

Daria (9) prepared a power point presentation as her gift of thankfulness to Jesus for all the fun and special happening she was part of this year.

Our Active member wanted to come and bake cookies with kids, which were afterward decorated and packaged as souvenirs for all who came to share these special moments with us.

Some kids wanted to draw cards and write Christmas quotes as special reminders of Christmas. All kids wanted to sing traditional carols and young people pitched in as well in signing and catering the event.

Another couple from our center prepared a message that touched our hearts and made us ponder on true values of life and the meaning of the first Christmas.

It was simple, flowing, impromptu in some parts, interspersed with tasty snacks, and rounded of with a toast to Jesus and a special birthday 'brownie' cake.

Fellowship, laughter, cheers, children's happy faces, grateful hugs, warm atmosphere - that's what stays in our memories!

 

 

Christmas Warmth

By Pat Sullivan
My husband, Chuck, and my sister, Lee, are partners in a heating company in Chicago. Lee is the hirer, phone answerer, typist, bookkeeper, and office girl. She will bring hot soup and sandwiches to a crew in an icy basement at three o’clock in the morning, but she is “hard-hearted Hanna” when it comes to spending company money.
One day about a week before Christmas, all the phones in the office seemed to start ringing at once. There were more broken boilers, burned-out fire pots and stuck stack switches than there had ever been before, and the men were working around the clock. I went to help out on the phones, and it was all I could do just to write down the names and addresses of the people without heat.
One woman called in tears. She lived in a very low-income section of Chicago. She had been phoning for several hours, one heating company after another, trying in vain to get a serviceman to fix their broken heater. I took the order and promised that a man would be there within the hour. Then she asked if she could pay a little money each week for the service call, and I looked at Lee and repeated the question. She nodded, and when I told the customer, Mrs. Jenkins, not to worry, she said, “God bless you, Miss.”
Lee turned the call over to Chuck, as all of the other men were out. “Bump that other call I gave you; they only have a noisy burner. This is no heat. Better get right on it.”
Chuck left and was gone for several hours. When he came back he told Lee, “Forget the billing on that one.”
She looked at him. “Since when are we in the charity business?”
Then Chuck told her that Mrs. Jenkins was a widow with seven little children. Her house was clean and bare with very few furnishings. The children were thin and hungry-eyed, wearing patched clothes.
After Chuck had got the heat going, one of the smaller boys had shyly come over to watch him pick up his tools. Chuck patted him on the head and asked, “What did you tell Santa Claus you wanted for Christmas?” The child looked him right in the eye and answered, “No more Santa Claus, Mama says. No use to ask him for any toys, ’cause he’s dead.”
Lee never said a word, but brusquely handed Chuck another call. We worked, all three of us, most of the night.
The next morning Lee called in to tell us she hadn’t heard her alarm and would be late. Chuck seemed strangely happy to hear this and asked one of the men to watch the phones for a while, then hustled me into my coat.
“Can’t spend a dime with that woman looking over my shoulder,” he grumbled.
When we pulled up in front of a large toy store, I knew what he was up to. He hummed and whistled while he loaded the shopping cart with dolls, games, trucks, and spaceships. Then we headed to the candy store for filled stockings and striped peppermint canes. We drove through thick snowflakes all the way to the west side, unloaded the piles of presents, and rang Mrs. Jenkins’ doorbell.
In we trotted, behind the whooping children, to find a red-cheeked Lee pinning a Christmas Star of Bethlehem on the top of a fragrant pine tree. Nearby was Mrs. Jenkins, smiling through her tears, as she carefully unpacked a Nativity scene and reverently placed the figures of the Holy Family on her dining room table.
“Well, don’t just stand there, get busy!” Lee said, tossing a box of tinsel to my open-mouthed husband. “What took you so long?”

The Day the Rumor Died

Whether people think they’re on “Santa’s team,” “Grandma’s team,” or “Jesus’ team,” when the goal is sharing love, it’s the same team!

By Anonymous

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: “There is no Santa Claus,” she jeered. “Even dummies know that!”
 

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. “No Santa Claus?” she snorted. “Ridiculous! Don’t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.” “Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked. I hadn’t even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.


“Where” turned out to be Kerby’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. “Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby’s.

I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock’s grade two class. Bobby Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but we kids all knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a cough, and he didn’t have a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!

I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. “Yes,” I replied shyly. “It’s ... for Bobby.” The nice lady smiled at me. I didn’t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons. A little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible and wrote “To Bobby, from Santa Claus” on it. Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa’s helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby’s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. “All right, Santa Claus,” she whispered, “get going.”
I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell, and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven’t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering beside my Grandma in Bobby Decker’s bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.