December 2008
WORDPLAY
Official JOAN REEVES WEBSITE Newsletter
"I can't write 5 words but that I change 7." Dorothy Parker, Writers at Work, 1958.
Volume 7 No. 12
"Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself." ~Og Mandino
Happy Holidays! You'll be hearing that greeting a lot this month. Isn't that nice? I like hearing it. I also like hearing Merry Christmas, and I like saying Happy Hannakah, Happy Kwanzaa, and other greetings of the season that should invoke the best of humankind.
I hope you enjoy every moment of this month. Resist the urge to feel stressed and frazzled. Check out my holiday tips on both my blogs.
IN THE NEWS
Both of my blogs are running Holiday Suggestions until Christmas Eve. Check them out. I've had some problems with hackers on Joan Slings Words (http://JoanSlingsWords.com) but the site should be up and running again by December 7.
My other blog Sling Words (http://SlingWords.blogspot.com) has become so busy that there are multiple blog posts every day. You might want to subscribe to the RSS feed so you don't miss any.
By the way, if any of you out there have websites or blogs and would like to exchange links, just let me know. Send me an email at joan @ joanreeves.com with REAL LIVE PERSON - LINK EXCHANGE in the subject box.
Don't forget my guest blogging at the American Association of Future Retirees. The link is in my NOTE FROM JOAN on the WELCOME page.
This month concludes the serialized novella MOONLIGHT ON SNOW: A LOVE STORY on http://www.romantic4ever.com. If you liked the story, be sure and send that site an email, and maybe they'll publish another romantic comedy the publisher and I have been discussing.
Oh, and buy my mom's book! MEMORY LANE: MY SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY will be ready for purchase in 7 - 10 days. It will make a great gift for the holidays.
Oh, and buy my mom's book! (https://www.createspace.com/3360102) MEMORY LANE: My Sentimental Journey by Lucille Dickinson Ainsworth and Joan Ainsworth Reeves (that's me) will be ready for purchase in 7 - 10 days. The book will be sold from the publisher's site which is the link given everywhere on my website when you see the book's cover. It will also be on Amazon, but I don't have the Amazon link yet.
More information will be posted on my blogs and on my mom's blog, (http://VisitMemoryLane.blogspot.com) Visit Memory Lane, within 7 days. Be sure and read about Mom's book, MEMORY LANE: My Sentimental Journey, a nostalgic look back at life in rural America during more innocent times, on one of the pages of this website. (HINT: Great Christmas gift for history buffs, older Americans who also remember life that way, and the grandchildren of those older Americans who want to know how their grandparents and great grandparents lived since it's priced at a modest $14.99 plus shipping.)
WHAT'S NEW ON THE WEBSITE?
GREETINGS: Note for December with a general overview of the monthly update.
THE PLEASURE OF READING features an Interview with popular author P. J. Mellor.
THE JOY OF WRITING feature article: STICKY IS GOOD will help you with your web presence and promotion.
WORDPLAY: Ah, yes, this newsletter that you are reading which has a holiday story SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS just for subscribers. Share the info and tell a friend.
THE ARCHIVES: An article usually appears on its originating page for two months. After that it's moved to The Archives.
WORK IN PROGRESS: 12 of 12: an analysis of my success in achieving my big goals for 2008. Time for you to assess your own accomplishments.
Previously Published: Feature Article: THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. The entire series KEEPING AND USING YOUR RIGHTS remains on the page.
WRITTEN WISDOM: December's theme is Giving and Generosity. Look for quotations from Buddha, Barbara Bush, Lydia M. Child, Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Dale Evans, Audrey Hepburn, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Epitaph on Mel Blanc's tombstone: "That's all, folks."
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year.
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LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU
SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS
by Joan Reeves©2008
All Rights Reserved
T'is the season to be jolly. But have you noticed how many articles discuss holiday depression? There's almost as many as the ones that tell how to create memorable holidays.
I think this reflects the way many have come to regard Christmas, as the most difficult time of the year, not the most wonderful. By the time the Thanksgiving turkey has been carved, we anticipate the holiday blues even as we exhort ourselves to fight them. Then, we add more stress by wanting to find the perfect gifts, throw the perfect party, serve the perfect dinner.
Visions of a Norman Rockwell Christmas that will live forever in memory dance in our heads. Yet, on Christmas morning, many experience disappointment, or worse, a pervading sense of gloom as we look at the crumpled pile of expensive paper and shiny ribbons, discarded toys, and the mountain of charge slips. We shrug our shoulders and mutter, “Christmas just isn't the same anymore.” And it isn't. Because somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of the meaning of Christmas.
How trite, you say. How true, I say.
For those of us who celebrate Hannakah or who profess to be Christians, this time of year is supposed to have religious significance for us. Yet, how many people actually do something to celebrate their faith? Hanging onto our religion is almost impossible as we inch across the overpass to the mall, cursing the drivers who cut in front of us.
We feel the spirit of love, friendship, and good will to all mankind seep from our very souls with every hour spent trudging from store to store, spending more than we'd planned, with every encounter with rude clerks who probably also suffer from aching feet and a bad attitude.
Therapists say that most people spend an average of seventeen hours shopping for presents for their children but only an average of eight minutes playing with the kids on Christmas morning. Is it any wonder that we, and then they, ask, “Is that all there is?”
Most people think of the holidays as broad strokes on a larger than life canvas. But, just as small details bring a painting to life, so it is that small moments make the holidays special. Christmas is a moment here and a moment there, gathered from all the Christmases past like precious beads on a string, brighter than all the plastic glitter and electric lights strung throughout the malls of the land. Let me show you some of the bright moments that I've gathered over the years.
Christmas is our daughter Adina at the age of three as she jumped into bed with us, bubbling with excitement, her sapphire eyes sparkling with wonder. “There really is a Santa Claus, Mommy and Daddy. Come look. Last night there was nothing under the tree and this morning, there's a bicycle!” Her high-pitched voice held the awe felt by a child when confronted with the marvelous mystery of Santa.
Christmas is attending Candlelight Communion at church on Christmas Eve with the whole family. It's watching Adina, years later as an acolyte, lighting the candles on the altar. It's recalling special memories and toasting those people we loved who have passed, but who always live in our hearts.
It's going home from church and opening “family presents.” And it's the crazy wrapping paper war that ensues. Each person hoards their gift wrap for ammunition. Then a blizzard of paper, accompanied by laughter, giggles, and the dog barking manically, fills the downstairs. No one, neither child nor adult, sits on the sidelines.
Christmas is reading the journal that I started when the children really were children. Each year, they griped because I made them write something about the holidays. Now, with them all grown, they delight in reading the words they were forced to write over the years. I enjoy watching them hoot with laughter as they read aloud to each other and to their own kids. They comment on their childish handwriting, the misspellings, and their silly desires.
Those were the years when all Melanie wanted was a Barbie doll. Now all she wants is some quiet time from her busy life as young mother and homemaker.
At fourteen, all Michael wrote about was girls, girls, girls. Now the girls he's focused on are his wife and daughter with a lot of attention to his son too.
Micky, always the family comedienne, once rhapsodized about his favorite gift from his grandmother - socks. They all still crack up when they read that. His vibrant sense of humor now helps him balance a busy corporate life, a wife, and two beautiful daughters.
Adina, our baby, once wanted nothing but My Little Pony. Now she's a teacher, but I guess she never outgrew a pony. Now her little pony is the Mustang convertible she drives.
Each year we fill the Santa can with red and green foil-wrapped Hershey Kisses and recall the party where Micky won the Santa can. We set our angels out and discuss the year that each one represents. There's the glued-together 1988 angel that had been accidentally knocked from the table by one of the kids, and the tiny wooden angel with the broken wing that the dog tried to eat.
These moments, frozen in time, are the kind of priceless gifts you can't buy at the mall. Even better, they don't break, need batteries, or get ignored in the toy chest. Time never diminishes their significance or fades their sweetness.
So this is Christmas to me. All these moments and so many more - saved in the scrapbook of my heart.
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"That's all there is, there isn't any more." Ethel Barrymore, curtain call in 1904.
