Archive

Monthly Archives: December 2018

Why Can’t I Stick to My New Year’s Resolutions?

December 31, 2018
Living Today, Perspective, Total LIfe Makeover
2 Comments

1497979_10200982010782985_517799757_o
2017 was a good year for me. What it good for you?

At the beginning of the year, most of us recognize that the beginning of a new year represents a clean slate of possibilities.

  • Gyms fill up with hopefuls looking to, finally, this year get in shape.
  • Weight Watchers and Nutrisystem have an uptick in their clientele at the beginning of the year.
  • The sales of nicotine gum and nicotine patches go up.
  • We find content galore online and off telling us how to get better organized and how to better manage our time.

When the Hype Subsides

By the first of February, almost as soon as the hype subsides, so does the enthusiasm and participation. Gyms are vacated. Weight Watcher members don’t show up for meetings. The sale of cigarettes goes back up and we must search the archives to find the articles that were so abundant in January. All that organizing we wanted to get done goes unfinished.

I was no exception. I remember back when I used to make New Year’s resolutions. I would make a laundry list of things that I wanted to change like lose thirty pounds, get fit, get organized and write that first book. The first couple of weeks I would do okay, but then something would happen, and I would skip a day and then another until finally I wasn’t doing anything that I resolved to do at the beginning of the year. Every year I would do the same and I would have the same zero results.

So, why does this happen? One of the reasons that this happens comes from the idea that we tend to overestimate what we can do in a day. Another reason is that when we are going over the idea of making changes and realize how wonderful that it would be, but as we go along we realize that we don’t have the will power that it takes to maintain all of these different changes all at the same time.

Don’t Make Resolutions, Establish Habits

So, what is a person to do? How do we actually change? We take baby steps. We can make small changes a little at a time and get used to the small change that we made before moving onto a new change. If we were to take every month and make one small change every month that took only 5 minutes to do, we would improve our lives a full hour during that year.

Where to Start?

Start by reading a book and learn how to establish the most important habit you could develop.

I know there are so many things that all of us don’t like about ourselves, however, did you know that there is one thing that you should start with that would set the stage so that you could make all of life’s improvements that you would ever want to make.

I have written about it in my book: The Keystone Habit. This book will tell you about the one habit that if you do it, it can be the catalyst that can change your entire situation. Click here to get this free book to discover exactly how you can start today doing the one change that could change your life forever.

This book is not just something that works in theory. It works because it works for real people like you and me. I’ve used the information that I am sharing successfully and I am sure you can too.

Origins of Nine Christmas Traditions

December 24, 2018
Christmas, Cultural Influence
Leave a comment

Week before last, we talked about Santa Claus. (Here’s the Link to this post). Last week I showcased candy canes. Here’s a link to that post (put in link to this post). Because this is Christmas Eve, I am finishing this short series by sharing some more Christmas traditions.

December 25th for Jesus Birthday

Dixie-Stampede-Nativity

The idea that the choice of December 25 for Christ’s date of birth does not come from Pagan holiday traditions as many people believe. A major pagan holiday was celebrated around the winter solstice called Saturnalia. However, Saturnalia wasn’t on December 25th. It ran from December 17-23. Another festival happened on New Year’s Day which started back in 153 B.C.

Celebrating Christ’s birth on December 25th started in A.D. 204 with the writings of Hippolytus of Rome. He figured the date by guessing that Jesus death March 25th which had been the accepted date of Jesus’ death since 200 A.D. In addition, according to Jewish Talmudic tradition, all righteous men died on the same day they were conceived, and Jesus’ conception must have occurred around March 25th. Based on this assumption, by counting the days, nine months after conception would be December 25.

The Three Wisemen Visiting the Stable

The wisemen were mystical priests and astrologists. These men saw something in the starts that they needed to check out. It is highly unlikely that these men arrived at the manger, but rather they came some time later. Based on the Biblical accounts, these men came to the ‘house where the child was.” This could have happened any time after Jesus was born. Herod asked the men when they saw the star in the sky and then asked them to show him where the child was so that he too could worship the child. When the wisemen didn’t return to Herod, Herod sent men to kill every boy child in Bethlehem under the age of two.

In addition, it was unlikely only three of these men showed up. They likely came by caravan. The reason we say three wisemen is because of the three gifts that were given—gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Shepherds and Angels

According to the Bible, angels told shepherds in the field that the Messiah had been born.

Holly

Legend says that one of the earliest connections of Holly with Christmas occurred back when early Roman Christians adopted holly as a sacred plant. They believed that the wood for the cross was made of holly wood and the crown of thorns was holly leaves with white berries stained red by Christ’s blood.

The Christmas Tree

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

Christmas Tree Lights

The tradition of lighting the darkness goes back to the Yule, a midwinter festival celebrated by Norsemen. The festival boasted nights of feasting, drinking Yule, the Norse god Odin’s sacrificial beer and watching the fire leap around the Yule log burning in the home hearth.

The lighting of the Yule log spread throughout Europe. Many believed the log’s flame summoned the sun’s return and drove away evil spirits. Over time Christianity adopted this tradition and the light from the Yule log came to represent Jesus as Light in the darkness.

Santa Claus

Santa Claus is based on St. Nicholas, born around 280 AD in what is now Turkey. Nicholas was known for helping the poor. By 1600, he was a popular saint, especially in Holland, where he was known as Sinter Klaas. By 1800, Dutch emigrants had introduced him to the United States, later helped by the writer Washington Irving passing on their stories about him, and by Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

Reindeer

Reindeer are deer species found in the Arctic regions and are well-adapted to living in cold and under rugged conditions, thus a perfect animal symbol to use during the winter season — the season most associated with Christmas. But other than that, reindeer came to be popular in contemporary Christmas lore because of the poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which was written by Clement Moore, and the song “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Moore’s poem, also known as “The Night Before Christmas,” talks of Santa Claus and his little sleigh, driven by eight flying reindeer. Moore’s poem was published annually during the Christmas season.

Mistletoe

The tradition of hanging it in the house goes back to the times of the ancient Druids. It is supposed to possess mystical powers which bring good luck to the household and wards off evil spirits. It was also used as a sign of love and friendship in Norse mythology and that’s where the custom of kissing under mistletoe originated.

The name mistletoe comes from two Anglo Saxon words ‘Mistel’ (which means dung) and ‘tan’ (which means) twig or stick! So you could translate Mistletoe as ‘bird dung on a stick’! This name came from the fact that mistletoe spread on trees from bird feces to bird feces.

During medieval times, people believed that mistletoe had magical powers. This plant could ward off evil spirits and the devil. It was used in ceremonies and burnt once Christmas was over.

When the first Christians came to Western Europe, some tried to ban mistletoe as a decoration in churches. York Minster Church in the UK used to hold a special Mistletoe Service in the winter, where wrong doers in the city of York could be pardoned.

Mistletoe was also hung on the old English decoration the Kissing Bough.

The custom of kissing under Mistletoe comes from England. The original custom was that a berry was picked from the sprig of Mistletoe before the person could be kissed and when all the berries had gone, there could be no more kissing!

Gifts for Christmas

One of the main reasons we have the custom of giving and receiving presents at Christmas, is to remind us of the presents given to Jesus by the Wise Men: Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh.

Frankincense was a perfume used in Jewish worship and, as a gift, it showed that people would worship Jesus.

Gold was associated with Kings and Christians believe that Jesus is the King of Kings.

Myrrh was a perfume that was put on dead bodies to make them smell nice and, as a gift, it showed that Jesus would suffer and die.

Christmas itself is really about a big present that God gave the world about 2000 years ago -Our Lord Jesus!

Merry Christmas!

The History of the Candy Cane

December 17, 2018
Christmas, Cultural Influence
2 Comments

Did you know that the candy cane has had a long history?

candy canesThe classic peppermint flavor of the candy cane has been around for 600 years, but the original candy canes didn’t have the now iconic hook but were just straight sticks. In 1640, a German choirmaster decided to change things up by curving the shape to look more like a shepherd’s staff, resulting in the candy cane shape we all know and love today.
About this same time, Christmas trees became popular Christmas decorations and candy canes were part of those decorations. If your family is like my family, there’s a good chance that you have candy canes on your own tree today. (We put up our tree on Thanksgiving weekend.) That hook in the candy cane makes it easy to hang those candy canes on the tree.

The candy cane was first introduced to America in 1847 by a German-Swedish immigrant named August Imgard.

One legend suggests that an Indiana-based candy-maker shaped the peppermint stick into a “J” shape to represent Jesus, with the white stripe symbolizing the purity of his birth and the red stripe later added to acknowledge the blood he shed on the cross. This origin claim has been debunked, because white candy and peppermint sticks existed in Germany since the 1600s. It may be possible though that this Indiana-based candy-maker attached this symbols to the candy cane to make a deeper connection with the holiday season.

Since candy canes were originally made by hand, they were sold out of local candy shops. It wasn’t until the 1950s a Catholic priest named Gregory Keller invented a machine that could make candy canes that curve automatically. Once automated, candy canes became a popular Christmas confection. Every year, 1.76 billion candy canes are sold and ninety percent of them are sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
In 2012, Geneva pastry chef Alain Roby broke his third Guinness World Record by creating the world’s longest candy cane. This candy cane was 51 feet long. The previous record had been 38 feet.

Though other flavors do exist, the most popular flavor is remains peppermint flavored ones with red stripes on white.

Do you have candy canes around your house this holiday season?

How Should we Handle the Santa Claus Myth with our Children?

December 10, 2018
Christmas, Perspective
2 Comments

 

Santa_Claus_face

When I was little, I was told that there was a Santa Claus. However, I figured out very quickly (at about 3 years old) that Old Saint Nicholas was a myth. I remember telling my friends at school that there wasn’t a Santa Claus and they treated me as though I were a villain! I vowed then and there that I wasn’t going to perpetuate the lie with my own children. However, as the years went by, I have since relaxed my views.

When my Eldest Son was Little

When my eldest son was little, we had gifts, but the gifts came from family members, not the mythical character. We didn’t have a Christmas tree or any of the other trappings that go with Christmas. We just shared gifts and the Christmas story.

A few years later, after my second son was born, I lightened up on some of the other holiday traditions. We had Christmas decorations and a tree. However, we still didn’t have Santa Claus as part of our celebration. I wasn’t letting a mythical character share the limelight in the celebrations surrounding the second most holy day in Christendom.

Another Ten Years Went By

When my sons were younger, I always told them not to share the fact that Santa was not real with their friends. I even told them the story of what I had to face when I told my friends that there was no Santa Claus.

As I got older, however, I began to see the lack of fun and imagination that comes with “not believing in Santa Claus”. I personally loved watching the Santa Clause with my boys. It was fun to pretend that Santa was real.

My second son was ten when my daughter was born. By the time she was born, Santa Claus was back into our Christmas traditions. The difference we made, however, was that everyone knew that Santa was pretend. My youngest was told from day one that Santa was not real, but we were going to pretend that he was real. We would talk about Santa like he was a real person, but if my daughter was confused about whether he was real or not, I would tell her that he was pretend.

The idea came from something that happened when my eldest was about six years old. I was out blackberry picking while he was talking ninety miles per minute at me. He was telling me a story that I knew was not true and I called him on it. He told me, “It’s just a story, Mom. It’s just a story!”

It’s just a Story

Personally, I have nothing against pretending with our children, especially about someone as benevolent as Santa Claus. Like other forms of fiction, we can use the Santa Claus myth to teach our children about giving to others. The Santa story is also a story that boosts the imagination and by pretending the Santa character with our children, we can build our relationship with them. It is important for everyone to know the truth about the Santa character. Understanding the difference between fact and fiction is a concept that children can be introduced to early and Santa is a reasonable way to introduce this concept to our children.

But was Santa Claus just a fictional character? No, he wasn’t.

Based on a Real Person

Santa Claus was not just a story, however, and it is important for children to understand the history behind the story. Santa is based on St. Nicholas, born around 280 AD in what is now Turkey. Nicholas was known for helping the poor. By 1600, he was a popular saint, especially in Holland, where he was known as Sinter Klaas. By 1800, Dutch emigrants had introduced him to the United States, later helped by the writer Washington Irving passing on their stories about him, and by Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

What Do You Think?

What do you think about the Santa Claus Myth? Do you promote it with your children? Do you ignore it all together, or do you, like me, use Santa Claus to teach your children (or grandchildren) about life?

Who Wants To Be Common?

December 3, 2018
God's Gifts to Us, Perspective
1 Comment

main streetI cringe every time I hear someone say that some way of thinking is “common sense”. One reason is that I feel that common sense comes from a limited way of thinking. Common sense usually is regarded when one person who has been in a specific group of people that has a limited mindset. These people are exclusive unto themselves. Who wants to be common?

As I see it, the idea of common sense is rather bigoted. When a person says that something is “common sense, it means that because you don’t believe like we believe, you’re less than average. You’re not even good enough to be common when you don’t believe what is common to society. Common sense is “in-the-box-thinking.”

Developing Un-Common Sense

I prefer un-common sense or out of the box thinking. Out of the box thinking is creative thinking. I think that I have been a creative thinker all my life and I think that stems from having less than most children when I was growing up.

I Had Creative Parents

It also stems from having parents who grew up during the depression, who also had to be creative. When my mother was little, her playhouse was the shade of an apple tree. She played with her dolls under that tree. My Dad used to tell us stories about things that his brothers and sisters used to do. I remember he said that during the winter, he made barrel stave skis that he used every winter.

Though we never seemed to have enough money everything we wanted, we never had our utilities shut off or were ever without food. My parents always found creative ways to make ends meet. When I was growing up, my mother did a lot of gardening, canning, and freezing produce. I learned self-sufficiency from her.

We didn’t always have money to have birthday parties, but that didn’t stop us from creating them anyway. We would make decorations from construction paper that we recycled at the end of the previous school year. We baked a made from scratch birthday cake from baking supplies that my mother always had on hand. Often, we didn’t have powdered sugar, but my mother was always able to make frosting using egg whites (we often had our own chickens) and white sugar. Sometimes we drank Kool-Aid and other times us kids would pool our cash together and buy dime sodas (we called it “pop”). We would make our birthday gifts.

Books to Encourage Curiosity

We had access to books and my parents encouraged us to read. One of the things that they did spend money on when I was a child was a set of World Book Encyclopedias and a set of Child Craft Books. They used to help us look up things in those books. I loved learning and still do thanks to the uncommon sense that both of my parents had in raising their children.

How about you? What makes you uncommon?

 

%d bloggers like this: