Posted on 10 Dec, 2008 -
When Shirley Temple met Santa Claus
The 7 BEST presents you can give this year - ALL OF THEM FREE!
My favourite Christmas jokes so far
As a child I used to swap price stickers around on my Christmas presents in order to pretend, for example, that the 10p stick of rock I’d bought my cousin had cost me 75p instead. This year I will be performing some opposite forms of deception in an attempt to persuade my mother that I have stuck to the £5 limit for adult gifts.
The truth, of course, is that I love buying presents. I guess because it is a great opportunity to enjoy my love for others and also to show my love to them.
This year, to help us all through the shopping frenzy weeks, I have dug up for us two very different things.
Something to make you smile
First of all, a funny Christmas line I found by Shirley Temple:
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.”
And then secondly, on a less frivolous note (don’t worry, there are three more jokes coming at the end!), I thought you’d appreciate this alternative Christmas gift suggestion list from the American novelist, journalist, and humorist, Oren Arnold…
- To your enemy, forgiveness.
- To an opponent, tolerance.
- To a friend, your heart.
- To a customer, service.
- To all, charity.
- To every child, a good example.
- To yourself, respect.
Don’t think you’ll get away with it that easily…
Very good, you maybe think and for a couple of minutes those words may give you a lift, an inspiration or a warm glow in your heart. But like all these things, that effect will very quickly vanish unless we DO anything about it.
So, before you rush off, I’d like to ask you to stay with me for a minute and try out a few things that I have been trying out myself.
“To your enemy, forgiveness”
First of all, I gave myself the sentence ‘I forgive X, Y or Z for doing X,Y or Z’ to complete and was amazed to discover the weight of some of the grudges that I held. I asked myself why I thought those people had done those things and was amazed by how much easier that made it to forgive their ‘crimes’.
How incredibly liberating it can be to forgive people for things we feel that they have done against us - to unburden ourselves of our heavy loads but also to spread more love and understanding and less hate in the world. To realise that in many cases the reasons for their actions had been created from something that was so much more about what was going on for them than intentionally directed towards hurting you.
By offering the people around us more love and understanding in the future, we will get more back from them and also get to feel good about our own magnanimous behaviour.
“Forgiveness,” said Mark Twain, “is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
Another exercise worth doing is to go through the different people in your life and say for each ‘I forgive X for XYZ because XYZ.’
“To a friend, your heart.”
How, I asked myself next, could I give a friend my heart? Here are a few of the answers I came up with for myself:
By writing a longer heartfelt message on their Christmas card this year that will talk more deeply to them emotionally.
By picking up the phone and giving them half an hour of my time.
By (subtly) telling them complimentary things that will make them feel good.
By letting them know that I am thinking of them.
By really listening to what is on their mind right now. Listening deep. Allowing them the chance to talk and really attempting to understand how what they are saying is so personal, specific and central to their life.
“To a customer, service.”
This one, of course, may be essential advice for our own survival if we are to survive the recession. The better a job you do, the less likely you are to lose it.
But there is also a message here about how business should be conducted for a more meaningful life and harmonious world. So often when we go about our jobs it can become such a chore that we can begin to resent it. Yet if we decide that we will use whatever our role may be to add more goodwill, more goodness, more creativity and more happiness to the big pot of life then we will get so much more out of it.
What extra thing can you do this Christmas to offer a better service to your ‘customers’, your dependents, your benefactors or whoever it is that you work for or get your livelihood from?
“To every child, a good example.”
If you think the youth of today are bad then you may be tickled to discover how little things have changed since 400 years BC:
“Our youths love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority - they show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up food, and tyrannise teachers.” (Said the Greek philosopher Socrates and one can only assume that he was talking for the general opinion as well.)
Plus ça change! Because let’s face it, a lot of the habits and behaviors that wind us up in our kids are just the way kids are. So while we stick it out with perseverance, tolerance and understanding until they one day become adults, perhaps the most important thing we can do is to set good examples ourselves of the kind of behavior we would like them to develop.
Mostly, I hope, this can reassure us that we are already doing a good enough job. But it is also worth asking ourselves whether we ourselves are allowing ourselves to enjoy and display the kind of attributes we would like our adult children to have.
“To yourself, respect.”
OK, now here’s the last challenge that I’m going to leave you with today. I want you to take a look at the second hand of a watch or clock and force yourself to spend a minimum of one whole minute thinking about things that you respect yourself for.
Don’t allow yourself to stop until that minute is over and try to spend the rest of the day having little thoughts on this subject of 100 Reasons why you respect yourself.
A few more Christmas jokes for you
And finally, I couldn’t resist sending you a few more Christmas jokes…
Mum, Can I have a dog for Christmas ?
No you can have turkey like everyone else !
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It was Christmas Eve in a supermarket and a woman was anxiously picking over the last few remaining turkeys in the hope of finding a large one.
In desperation she called over a shop assistant and said “Excuse me. Do these turkeys get any bigger?”
“No” he replied, “They’re all dead”.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Question: Why is Christmas just like another day at the office?
Answer: You end up doing all the work and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
Carol singers!
Carol singers! Do you know what flaming time of night it is?
No, But if you hum it we’ll sing it!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Knock! Knock!
Who’s there?
Wendy!
Wendy who?
Wendy red red robbin comes bob bob bobbin along!
