AFTERMATH
[This essay appeared many years ago, and yet it remains true for me as we settle into a new year, 2026.]

Whether you started Christmas the day after Thanksgiving and took down all the decorations on December 26th or started Christmas on December 25th and celebrated the full 12 days (through January 6th), there's more to come.

Not more Christmas celebrating, exactly. But whatever transformations you felt, whatever new feelings you experienced, these you carry into the new year.

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In 1959, 20th Century Fox made a film called Say One For Me, starring Bing Crosby as Father Conroy, with Debbie Reynolds and Robert Wagner as major players in the story. One of the songs in that production was called "The Secret of Christmas."

Here are the words of the refrain, written by Sammy Cahn:

It's not the glow you feel when snow appears,
It's not the Christmas card you've sent for years,
Not the joyful sound when sleigh-bells ring,
Or the merry songs children sing.

The little gift you send on Christmas day,
Will not bring back the friend you've turned away;
So may I suggest The Secret of Christmas
is not the things you do at Christmastime,
But the Christmas things you do all year through!

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What are the "Christmas things" we do?

Well, there's merry-making! Parties (the ones you give, the ones you go to), gift-giving . . . .

There's the uber-busy business of shopping, decorating, baking cookies, making candy, writing cards, planning dinners, knitting scarves, buying new clothes . . . .

For some folks there's a Christmas pageant or play, a cantata, rehearsals and getting one's self and/or the kids to the rehearsal hall . . . .

Or how about visiting shut-ins who don't have family to celebrate with? Taking small gifts to nursing homes and hospitals for patients and caregivers? Buying poinsettias to brighten the patient's room?

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Those are some of the Christmas things people do. And as soon as Christmas is "over," whenever that is, we go back to regular activities. To be fair, I don't think we actually forget to do these things--they just drop to a lower place in the list of priorities.

As the song's messages suggests, Christmas isn't only one time a year. The things we do at that mid-winter celebration can be carried on throughout the next twelve months. 


So how would a list of Christmas Things To Do All Year Through look?

How about this:

~Give a no-reason party for a few people you love to see. Buy each one a little gift if you want to.

~Write notes to folks throughout the year--tell them how much you appreciate them; encourage them during difficult times; congratulate them when they have good news.

~Knit/crochet scarves for people who come to the shelters in your area. Or hats. Don't knit or crochet? Buy some pretty items and donate them to the shelter. If you're really ambitious, make lapghans (small afghans suitable to keep laps warm) for folks in nursing homes who sit a lot.

~Volunteer to help with school or church programs--backstage work, making costumes, helping actors learn their lines; or take part yourself--try out for a role, sing in the chorus, play the piano at rehearsal.

~Get a list of shut-ins from your church or neighborhood community center. Send notes. Order small bouquets and deliver them. If you have the time, go for a short visit (five or ten minutes means a lot to someone who has no visitors).

~Read to someone who has trouble seeing.

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Best of all, make your own list. You know what you can do and like to do. See what you can come up with to help someone else get a little better quality of life. If you're already into the All-Year-Through feeling, you are a blessing, and you are blessed. You don't get a badge to sew on your jacket or a pin to wear or a certificate . . . but the Christmas things you do all year through will make your life, and someone else's, merry and bright.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

 THIS IS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT, CHARLIE BROWN

Luke 2:8-14King James Version (KJV)

⁸ And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

⁹ And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

¹⁰ And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

¹² And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

¹⁴ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

 

A Blessed Christmas to you!

 

Thursday's Child 

  WINTER SOLSTICE

The Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is coming Sunday, December 21st. On the calendar it's the day when the earth is at such an angle that we up north have the least amount of sunlight and the most amount of darkness. Actually--scientifically--it's only a moment, not a full day. Then the earth begins to start its tilt the other way and we get to add a minute or so each day, and that continues until the Summer Solstice (June 20/21, approximately--longest day, shortest night).

For those of us who have been moaning/whining/ranting about the Dark Mornings and Dark Evenings--well, the solstice is Good News! Change isn't instantaneous, nor is it even immediate. Think of it as letting us get used to the change.

If you can't accept that--you might consider moving to another hemisphere for the next six months. Just saying.

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Since the Winter Solstice signals change, here are some thoughts to entertain you:

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. Oprah Winfrey

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Hal Borland

Wishing you blessings heaped up and overflowing for the coming year! See you next time!

Thursday's Child

 THE TIDY-UP PRINCIPLE

My father was a carpenter most of his life. He designed, built, and then sold our houses. When each one sold, he went through the process again. And again.

After each project was finished, I don't recall any excess lumber or scraps of roofing or siding hanging around. I've no clue what happened to them, but I know they went some place; they were never left to clutter up the area around our house.

My mother was a homemaker. Even though she sometimes worked out in the marketplace, she was first and foremost a housewife. She cooked, cleaned, did laundry and ironed; her house was always uncluttered. (Let me say right here, I did not inherit this gene for a clean slate.)

Tidying up was natural to my parents, and to many of their generation. Even if they stored the remaining scraps of wood or leftover food from a meal, the goal was for the place to look good. (Plus, who knows when we might need a board just two feet long, or a little dish of peas to put in the chicken-vegetable soup.)

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We've just come through one big holiday, with food looming large in the picture.

Soon we'll be facing another (or several other) holiday meal(s) to celebrate with family and friends during the Christmas season.

This post isn't about food. Or, at least, not much. Leftovers are . . . well, what remains after a meal. Some folks love 'em, some won't touch 'em. Freezers are ideal if you just can't face one more meal of chicken/turkey/ham/roast beef/tofu. And if you have no idea what to do about leftovers, go to your grocery store and scan the magazine section--at last count, I found 17 different periodicals devoted to food, all on the newsstand at the same time.

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Okay, that's all about food.

I hear you asking, What other kinds of leftovers are there? 

Just about anything you can name. Leavings when all the gifts have been opened (paper, string, ribbon, gift bags, cards, instructions, small parts of a Lego set . . .). A few minutes and a big trash bag will take care of the problem. (Just don't bag up the instructions or the Lego.)

Old items of clothing that are replaced by new shirts, sweaters, socks, jackets . . . . Your favorite charity will love you for bringing in your former beloved items.

Books, games, CDs, DVDs whose entertainment value has sunk upon Christmas morn when the newest, and latest, and the next big-big-big thing is in your stocking. Not to mention anything technological. Check around your community--some places ask for donations of specific items like these.

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The saddest kind of leftovers are lost relationships--broken families--friendships that didn't weather a particularly bad storm.

The leftover part is the memory of what the relationship once was--that memory may never go away. And if the memories are good ones, they shouldn't go away. But the regrets we often have--ah, there's the rub. Sometimes we just can't face these losses.

This year, I move that we all make an effort to adopt the Tidy-Up Principle: forgive ourselves, and others; examine our regrets and let them go, if we can; and turn our eyes and minds and hearts outward. Toward peace. Toward love for others, whoever they are. Toward being the best person each of us can be.

All in favor, say "aye."

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May your days be merry and bright.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

  BABY STEPS

[We've become such a society that expects immediate results and instant gratification that I fear we're in danger of forgetting some simple ideas--such as, learning takes time.]

Have you noticed? Starting something new is no easy-peasy task.

For example—you retire. Ahead of you are seemingly endless days without your former 8 or 10 or 12 hours per day earmarked for a particular task or series of tasks. So you decide to tackle something new, say, woodworking.

Great! Get some books on woodworking. Go to the library and check out their back issues of magazines devoted to the subject. Find a mentor! (That’s the best of all—good old hands-on, show-me-how teaching.) (And an experienced mentor probably has all the expensive tools you may not want to buy right away. Check out the price of a table saw, and you’ll see what I mean.)

After a few days/weeks/months of perusing the projects available, you decide on one. But—your mentor says, “better start with something smaller” (simpler) (less expensive). And you’re already discouraged. You really want to see that small (you thought) jewelry chest come to life. It’d make a great gift for your wife/daughter/auntie. Hmmm.

Now, why should you be discouraged? Everything has to start somewhere—the biggest, most complicated, and expensive projects—all had a humble beginning.

Discouraged? Well, of course you are! If you’ve lived long enough to be approaching retirement (see paragraph 2 above) you’ve not only learned a lot along the way, you’ve been injected with the idea that NOW is the best time to do anything, and NOW is when it’ll happen.

No Practice. No Trial & Error. No Baby Steps leading to a final goal. Uh-huh.

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I’ve now been retired more than 15 years. Seems like every day I’m learning something new—not because I forgot how to do something, nor because I’m always trying different things. No, because every day’s learning comes with practicing what I’ve been doing for years and years. The take-away for me is this: The longer I practice, the more likely I am to reach beyond where I’ve always been; and at that point, I embark on a new journey of learning. Same subject. Now deeper.

Somewhere I read that writing a novel doesn’t teach you how to write the next one. You learn that when you write it. So writing a novel teaches me how to write this one—and next time . . . . More practice. More trial and error. More learning.

A similar thing happens with painting, which is my current creative activity. I watch YouTube videos, I practice, I learn something, I paint using that technique. Sometimes I remember that technique and use it again and again. Then the next week’s video goes into detail about something else, and I’m on the learning curve again.

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Learning also happens when we make mistakes. (Some people say that’s exactly when learning occurs.) 

• Another example from my life: I’ve been knitting since my teens. Learning as I go. Trying new things. Now that knitting is only an occasional activity, I don’t tackle ambitious projects. But I still love the process of producing knitted and purled stitches in patterns. Then comes the day when I’ve been talking with my knitting buddy and not counting stitches or paying attention, and my project has gone into some kind of fit. It no longer looks like a square dishcloth, but now resembles part of an elephant, or maybe a hippopotamus. Backtracking from my mistake causes me to practice how to un-knit, how far back to actually go, and whether I can figure out where I can pick up the pattern again.

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Learning can be discouraging. I’ll agree with that about 97%. But why is that?

I suspect it has several causes:

•      Pride – if we’ve learned a lot of stuff already in our lives, why should this new thing take very long?
•     Time – along with our pride, there’s the time element—it keeps speeding up (seems    that way) and if I don’t learn this new thing pretty soon, I’ll be too old/infirm or lose interest completely.
•     Peer pressure – really? About learning something new? You betcha. Look at any magazine article or online set of classes. How many of them say something like “10 ways to look better in a week” or “7 days to a new you” or “make this table and chairs in a weekend”? Who says it can be done in X number of hours/days/weeks? Better question: Who cares?

My approach may not be yours. But here it is, if you care to hear it:

• It takes as long as it takes.
• It may take longer if you have more to learn. (Remember, those baby steps, practice, trial and error, etc.)
• It may take longer because you get interrupted by Life. (Remember this one? Life is what happens when you’re making plans.)
• It may take longer because you have to let go of somebody else’s expectation—and here’s a good place to remember: you don’t have to tell other people what you plan to do. They’ll give you advice, keep asking when it’s done, and wondering why it’s taking so long.

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Baby Steps. Think about a baby learning to walk. First there’s crawling, then standing upright. Next, walking along the couch, holding on. Then a tentative step away from the edge of the couch. A step or two. Then a fall. Unless the baby is hurt, it grunts and gets up again and tries to take off on two feet, no hands. Sometimes it even giggles when it falls. Now that's worth hearing.

Most of us started out like that—so why not use the Baby Steps method the rest of our lives? It worked before.

I leave you with two more words:

• EXPLORE - what you'll be doing while you're learning
• DISCOVER - it's all part of learning

Have a wonderful week filled with exploration and discovery.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

 

  

GIVING . . .

Today in the U.S. we celebrate Thanksgiving Day--a time of offering our thanks for the many blessings we've received.

There's another way to look at Thanks-giving--emphasis on giving. Here's a poem by Alberto Rios, poet laureate of Arizona, that addresses that topic. I hope you like it.

When Giving Is All We Have

Alberto Ríos

                                              One river gives
                                              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.
 

[Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author.]

Born in 1952, Alberto Ríos is the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona and the author of many poetry collections, including A Small Story about the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). In 1981, he received the Walt Whitman Award for his collection Whispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press, 1982). He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2014 to 2020.

 

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

 PLANS?

[A little trip into Nostalgia Country.....]

Last week we had our first "snowstorm" of the season--after a 2-3-day fall, snow reached 6-8 inches on the ground. Then Spring came (sorta-kinda) and it all went away. A few days later, temps soared into the 60s.

Well, it was a taste of Winter, right? 

That was what I was going to write about last week--then the computers (both of them) had the audacity to go off on a wild fling (I can't figure it was anything else), and leave me high and dry. We have now made up, though I'm keeping my eye on them.

And, I was going to look at some of the Things We Can Do On Snowy Days. For instance:

• Catch up on projects that have gone by the wayside. Do you have any of those? Some people don't--they just abandon said project and pick up something new.
• Figure out a new fun thing to do--skating, skiing, snowboarding, making snow angels with the kids. Afterwards, tanking up on hot chocolate and thick oatmeal cookies (or your favorite snacks).
  
  
  

For those of us who appreciate a little alone time:

• Disconnect the doorbell--turn off the phone ringers (yes, cell phone, too!)--give yourself, and your family, some quiet time.
• Binge! Your favorite tv shows (old or new)--movies--documentaries you've been meaning to watch.
• Or, if you're really into Quiet Time, dig into that pile of books by your favorite chair--sample a few of them--pick the one that resonates this very day (you'll recognize it, it's the one you read to page 45 before you remember there are more to check out).
• For the cooks--make up every recipe you've been wanting to try. For this one, you have to have the ingredients on hand--no shopping. Don't have everything you need? Then improvise--make something new out of something old.

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Since the Big Snowstorm didn't last long enough, we had to do our regular stuff. But we also managed to clear out some drawers of clothing, raid the various closets for too-large, too-small, wrong color items that could be treasured by a local charity shop. We felt successful. And we have 3+ boxes to deliver tomorrow.

I did start a book I always read around Christmas time, Winter Solstice, a 504-page blockbuster by the late Rosamund Pilcher. In case you're wondering, yes, I remember the story, the characters, how it all folds together and ends satisfactorily. And because I remember, that's why I reread it nearly every winter.

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Next week we in the US will celebrate Thanksgiving. On a quick drive through my town yesterday, I saw enough pumpkins to fill a ten-acre field. Then we turned onto our street, and a new neighbor has already decorated for Christmas! But we're ecumenical here--over a block or so the Halloween 15-foot tall skeleton is still swaying in the wind.

Wherever you are, whatever your taste, I hope you enjoy the changing seasons. They may not be what we'd order, given that chance, but popular wisdom tells us--if you wait five minutes, the weather will change! Just be careful making plans.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child