A Borrowed Story of the True Meaning of Christmas

To Mike

While cruisin' the internet for some Christmas material suitable for posting, I found s collection of Christmas stories, not from some famous writer, but just plain folks. Like you. Like me. I was drawn to one story in particular, a story called "A Small White Envelope". I am a better man for having read it. "A Small White Envelope" is a true story, plainly written, but every last word of it comes from the heart...because the writer is telling a tale that she was a part of, not something contrived or hastily thought out. The message of "A Small White Envelope" is a familiar, yet timeless one. It is a testament to a family who took the Meaning of Christmas and actually practiced it.
                                         A Small White Envelope

It's just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.
It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas---oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it- overspending... the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma---the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.
Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.
Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat.
Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them."
Mike loved kids-all kids-and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition---one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.
The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.
As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there.
You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more.
Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.
May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always. God bless. The End.

I rarely copy and paste a whole story or article because it's just bad manners at the least and plagiarizing at worst. I did not want to break up "A Small White Envelope" into pieces. I hope the author understands the reasoning behind my decision. I think he or she will and to him or her I'd like to say thank you for such a personal and touching story. Merry Christmas and God bless you.

(hat tip to A Wharton Texas Christmas)

An Old Dad, Young Kids and Christmas - My Story

A child is born...

It's December 17 and the calendar continues on its unstoppable march to Christmas, 2010. I don't know about you but I have done more Christmas shopping with my wife over the past few weeks than I have ever done in my previous 53 years on this planet. I thought us old guys would be able to enjoy the dawn of our Sunset Years, spend a lot of time with our grand kids and take it easy during the Christmas season. That's before I went and married up with a younger woman and became the father to a new batch of kids who are younger than my grand children. I'm not complaining, mind you, I am speaking of the way the Good Lord does things His way and in such mysterious ways. Although my body says "ouch" quite often while shopping these days, my heart and mind say "thanks" and there seems to be a smile frozen on my face in anticipation of seeing the reactions of my two little girls, Issy, 8 and Bailey, 3 come Christmas Day and inevitable mangling of the wrapping paper on their Christmas goodies. I haven't been an eyewitness to kids rippin' into Christmas presents in almost thirty years when my sons were children. Trey is now 31 and Toby is 28. See? It's been a while.

A couple of other things that I have noticed over the last several weeks are how Bailey goes ballistic when she sees some toy or another that she can't live without in a TV commercial and the inevitable afternoon inventory of presents under the tree about 3:15 each day after school when Issy gets off the bus. She looks over the presents under the tree like a pitbull looks at a T-bone. The intense scrutiny of her observant blue eyes never misses even the smallest change in number or appearance of those gifts. And like that pitbull slobberin' over a medium rare steak, Issy is poised to lay waste to any and all wrapping paper and/or boxes within reach. Ah, the exuberance of youth.

Bailey on the other hand, is constantly reminding us of which toys she deems fit to be hers as the toy commercials play on TV. We are lucky to have cable TV which features about 7 or 8 hundred kids' channels, each one with a different set of toy commercials to taunt and tantalize children to the point of near-hysteria. 'Daddy, look!" or "Daddy, I want that!" are the most used phrases in the English language this month at our house. As I type this, what happens right on cue? A toy commercial comes on during Spongebob and Bailey shouts "Mama, I want that!" The kid has impeccable timing. If I were rich instead of handsome (that's what my Dad used to say), I'd own half of Toys R Us and damn near all of Walmart's toy inventory. Alas, I am handsome.  :)

Being the father of two young children at 54 years old holds challenges aplenty, to be sure, but those challenges are far outweighed by the rewards that only children can give - neverending smiles, laughter on the spur of the moment when we least expect it, unconditional love and ulcers. OK, I made that last part up. I have been blessed by God with the two little girls that He had planned for me long ago, when the only plan I had was to go fishin' or take a trip to the casino. Yup, the Good Lord knows exactly when to clobber us with a clue by 4 when the timing is juuussstt right. Like Crocodile Dundee said, "Me and God. We be mates". I couldn't have said it better myself.

Festive Town Names Across America!

Will Deliver Toys for Food***

You have read several posts on this blog featuring towns with odd names. We have been to DingDong, Texas, Boring, Oregon and Gas, Kansas. Don't forget  Greasy, Oklahoma, Lickskillet, Ohio and Oniontown, Pennsylvania, they  have also been destinations in our never-ending search for the oddest town names in the country. Today we will follow that basic theme, except instead of  odd town names, we are on the lookout for Christmas-y town names. As a matter of fact, I just happen to have a list of them right here! This list proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that America is a Christmas-y Kind of Place.

                                                                         The List

• Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan and Mississippi are home to Christmas, while you can find Christmas City in Utah, Christmas Cove, Maine, Christmas Valley, Oregon and Christmasville, Tennessee.
• Santa Claus has a home in Arizona, Georgia and Indiana.
• If you are looking for Rudolph, you might visit South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas or Wisconsin.
• A few other of Santa's reindeer have towns named after them too. Comet is well-represented in several states - Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
• Cupid is in Nebraska.
• Dasher is a Georgia Peach.
• You'll have to travel to Louisiana to find Vixen.
• California, Florida and Louisiana brag about Donner being in their state.
• Oregon may have Boring, but it also lists Blitzen on its maps.

If you're interested in finding more American towns and cities with festive names, you can find a Santa's Toy Bag full of them right here .

Feliz Navidad, y'all.

***Photo from RoadsideAmerica.com***

Texas Tidbits: The Wonderfullest Christmas in the United States of America

Old Time Christmas

Christmas is only nine days away. Doesn't seem possible, does it? As the big day draws near, the "visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads" are closer to reality. That particular phrase comes from "Twas the Night Before Christmas", a story we've all heard and love. But what about the day after Christmas? My first thought about the day after Christmas is to avoid any and all kinds of shopping by any means possible! I have seen enough brutality - the punching, the spitting, the hair pulling - and that's just the little old ladies in the produce section! You should see the younger women in the toy department! I don't even want to get into the bloodshed going on over the Dora the Explorer doll house. It's a sad commentary on the human condition. But! it's funny as hell....if you are watching from a safe distance.

Back to the day after Christmas. A Texan named John Henry Faulk, a name that is vaguely familiar to me, was a teacher, Marine medic in WWII, a broadcaster and author. For today, I don't want to focus on the details of his life, but rather his work. A specific piece of work to be exact. In 1974, Faulk recorded a piece for radio to be broadcast after Christmas. And what a story it was! The first paragraph is as follows:

"The day after Christmas a number of years ago, I was driving down a country road in Texas. And it was a bitter cold, cold morning. And walking ahead of me on the gravel road was a little bare-footed boy with non-descript ragged overalls and a makeshift sleeved sweater tied around his little ears. I stopped and picked him up. Looked like he was about 12 years old and his little feet were blue with the cold. He was carrying an orange."

This is a great story! It's not your typical Santa saves Christmas story, it runs much deeper than that. It'll take you several minutes to read it, but please do. You'll be glad you did and maybe you'll want to share it with somebody. The full story is right here. Enjoy.

Oh, yeah, I hope you have the "wonderfullest Christmas in the United States of America".

New York City: The Apple is Big on Christmas Lights

Awixa Castle at Christmas

New York City is arguably the premier city in the world. The Big Apple is home to Wall Street, Broadway, Times Square and, as Huey Lewis sang, "you can do a half a million things all at a quarter to three". During this time of year, Rockefeller Center is lit up like it's high noon with a giant tree decorated to the nines. I am not too familiar with NYC, but I am sure that there are a thousand other such things going on. A little Google Fu led me to a place on Long Island called Awixa Castle.

The original deed on the land that Awixa Castle sits on, dates back over 400 years authorized by Queen Anne of England. The Castle itself didn't come to fruition until the early 20th Century. In 1999, a guy bought the place and it was in disrepair, so he decided to fix it up. And he did. Now a days, Awixa Castle is used for various charitable events a few times a year. In addition, at Christmas time, the castle is transformed into a magical lighted fantasy land, with over 250,000 lights on over three acres of land.

Here's a video interview with Joe Weiss, the owner of the castle. Throughout the interview, you'll get to see various mini-. displays within the big display. It's quite a sight to behold.

You can find several more photos and with a little site navigation, you'll also see and learn quite a bit about Awixa Castle.

Texas Tidbits: The Lamb

I spend a considerable amount of time using "bing" or "Google" to find material for this blog and my two others, Dumbass News and Because Toby Said So. I go through probably 25 stories every time I search for blog material before I find the one I feel is a good one for the Topic of the Day. Today, I went through two. One was a story I had previously posted. The second one is the kind of story, an allegory really, that is a perfect fit for our Christmas Season posts. It is from December 22, 1999 and was written by an El Paso lawyer named Ron Jackson who is/was a Deacon at the First Baptist Church of El Paso.

Mr. Jackson's story begins thusly......."A blizzard raked the Texas Panhandle with sleet that Christmas morning.
___My brother brought news of a new-born lamb frozen in the sheep pen. All of the ewes were lambing, with one in terrible distress, unable to complete delivery. We herded the sheep into the barn. The heat from their bodies and a small gas furnace raised the temperature, but the sheep still were in danger. The lambs were arriving more than two months too early. We were not prepared. The young ewes were not ready--they were barely able to bear their lambs".......

Read the rest of this beautiful story here.

I have always liked the reference to Jesus as the Lamb of God. It's such a simple, yet powerful metaphor for the sacrifice Jesus made for you, me and every other person who has lived during the past 2000 years. It is through the sacrifice of the Lamb, the Son of Man, that we may achieve eternal life and give Glory to the Lord, God.

Merry Christmas.

Quick Post - Addition to Blogroll

Spider by eremophila

Just a quick note to let you know that I have made an addition to my blogroll! It's a really cool site with some terrific photos (Which you can purchase of you like. They're that good.), poetry and other thoughts from eremophila, the blog Administrator. It's called eremophila's musings Stop by the place and browse around. You'll thank me later. :)

Toby