Giving Season

It is that time of year when people are out buying gifts for one another, their children, themselves.  Giving to the one's you love is usually pretty gratifying especially when you get the looks of excitement and the words of gratitude.

There are volunteers ringing bells for money donations and boxes at the front of every store collecting food donations.  Giving to the needy perhaps isn't as gratifying to some because you do not actually get that smile or hug and the thank you praises.  However is that really the spirit of giving?  Self gratification.

I think it is wonderful if you are able to donate money or food to a good cause that you can find on every random street corner this time of year.  However there is a good cause that doesn't always get as much attention and that is the cause of children without gifts.  Sometimes families are in a tough spot at Christmas and just do not have the means to buy their child a gift.  It's easy for someone who never had one of those Christmas' as a child to say "Christmas isn't about stuff, we were taught..." I've heard it time and time again.  It kind of reminds me of some lyrics in one of my favorite Everclear songs...

"I hate those people who love to tell you money is the root of all that kills, they have never been poor, they have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas"

True, Christmas is not about stuff, and hopefully families teach their kids that.  However children are innocent and know that their friends and classmates and other children they are related to are receiving gifts at Christmas, and they see other children opening gifts in abundance on tv and in movies.

How heartbreaking do you think it is for a kid to wake up on Christmas morning knowing that to them billions of presents are being opened that morning by other children around the world and to not find a single gift has been given to them...

If you can find it in your heart this Giving Season please donate a gift to a needy child.  There are usually angel trees at every mall.  Local children's services usually have lists of needy children as well.  Usually hospitals accept gifts for the children in their care because a lot of them are terminal and the families are completely broke due to their child's medical expenses.  Perhaps ask your church minister if they know of any needy children. And there many organizations that you can donate to online as well.

I know I may sound like I'm contradicting myself from the blog, Thankful Reflections.  I was talking about people were spending hundreds of dollars on each of their children buying them insanely extravagant gifts. Kids do not need tons of super expensive gifts, but nothing at all... I do not feel is right.  Unless the family does not celebrate Christmas and the child has been taught to not expect anything.  But the rest of the kids out there who do celebrate, they may not expect anything but they have hope in their heart.  Why not give them some joy and turn that hope into what can be a long lasting reassurance that there actually is some good in humanity.  You never know what kind of situation this kid is living in, perhaps they need that reassurance.

To be honest I feel so strongly about this because I was one of those kids.  I mentioned on my about me, Blonde Girl's Narnia Quest, that when I was a kid it was feast or famine in my childhood and that is just how it is for some families.  Not every Christmas was the greatest.  But one of the greatest Christmas' I can remember was a year when there were no gifts for me or my brother, on Christmas morning my mom's boss showed up with a sack full of presents just like a real life Santa.  It could have been like 2 gifts for each of us, I don't remember how many there were, but to me it was the equivalent to him dumping a semi-truck load of gifts in the front yard.  I do not remember how old I was, but I wasn't very old, and it's always stuck with me.  It was an early lesson on how good a benevolent heart can make another person feel.

If you decide to participate, a lot of times when you see a child's wish gift or list you'll see what you possibly feel like are extravagant things, sometimes these are things the parents wrote down because it's what they wish they could give the kid, and sometimes kids just want cool things.  I saw on an angel tree today a parent wrote down for their child they would like a wii racing game, my first thought was well if they can afford a wii then why can't they afford gifts and I immediately had to check myself.  We had video games as kids, but we didn't always have the means for gifts at Christmas.  I saw MP3 player, kids do not think about the cost of gifts, they just know they want what other kids have, my exboyfriends child asked for an iPod when she was 5, but meant MP3 player for music, it's just the typical thing they ask for, when I was a kid it was all about the Walkman.  A cheapy MP3 player is not so hard to get, 10-30 bucks is not a lot to spend on a child, especially if that is possibly the only thing they will be getting this Christmas.  Also, it's easy to think "can't the parents just go get them some cheap stuff at the dollar store"... or something similar may run through your mind, perhaps they can and unfortunately many really can not. It is no reason to validate yourself not helping out the kid because of resentment towards a hypothetical situation.

Even though you may not get that gratification of seeing a child's excitement when they open up their gift, and we as adults all know Christmas is not really about stuff, we need to remember it's also not about personal gratification. However it should feel good to know you are helping a child!

Perhaps find a place in your heart to help out a kid because no kid should have to wake up Christmas morning without at least one present to bring some beauty to their small world.

Below is the video to one of my favorite Macy Gray songs.  Enjoy.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!!

Much Love!

Life Remote Control?

Today someone posted this little image on Facebook stating "Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself!!"  It reminded me of a blog that I wrote on another website a few months ago, and since I've pretty much integrated myself to only blogging here I thought I would transfer it over to share with you.  Life may not always be easy, but that is the beauty of it, to go through the good the bad and the ugly and to grow and make a life for yourself.


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Luck, Fate, Dedication and a lot of Gumption. ~Written by Me on 9/1/11 

Today was my last day at the job I was at for little over a year.  When I took the position the pay was fine, however I was in a relationship and there were two incomes.  Supporting yourself is not so easy on a low wage.  Over the past several months I realized that though I loved my job and my coworkers it was time to move on for bigger and better things.  I tried working my way up in the department I was in, unfortunately I was unable to.  There was a lot of frustration and heartbreak involved in the process.  I then began applying for promotions within the university in other departments.

After weeks of applying for positions I was called in for an interview!  It happened to be with the first department that I had applied for and the night that I applied it was the last night that the posting was available to apply for.  I then did more in depth research as to what the department actually did.  I sat down carefully thought out questions that I wanted to ask the people who would be interviewing me and wrote them down.  I also went through the job posting and reviewed the listed job duties and preferred qualifications and wrote down everything that I felt would show myself as an asset as pointers to glance at when in the interview in case I had a loss for words.

Sell yourself as someone that they feel like they need to have working for them and then you will be a front runner candidate.

Before even applying for positions I put together a carefully thought out and professional resume.  I also like to ask supervisors when I am leaving a job, or when they are perhaps leaving, for a letter of recommendation.  A great resume, cover letter, and letters of recommendation are what sell you to even land you the interview.  Out of 105 candidates I was chosen for the 10 that they brought in for interviews.  After giving the interviewers a good idea of who I was and selling myself as the valuable employee that I truly am, I was then chosen for the top 2 to come back and interview again with the head honcho.  It felt like I was on Survivor!

Would I be voted off the island or would I win the grand prize?

Out of 105 candidates I ended up being NUMBER 1!!!  I cannot wait to start tomorrow.   The promotion in position of course comes with a pay raise, that was the whole purpose of this process to begin with so that as a single person I could live a better quality of life, and stop depending upon Top Ramen to sustain me, the department I am transferring to also has a few added perks that I did not have in the old one.

This long story to get to about 8:05 this morning.  I was walking through the office and a coworker at the job I was leaving was standing there talking to someone else, looks at me and says “Barbara today is your last day.” and I say “Yep it sure is!” as I’m walking away I hear her saying to the other person “I really hate lucky people.”  This truly struck a nerve within me. 

“I really hate lucky people.”

• Luck: Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.
• Fate: The development of events outside a person’s control.
• Dedication: The quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose.
• Gumption: Shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.

Perhaps some of the process that happened was a little luck, perhaps some was fate, but if it were not for my dedication and determination to find a better job to improve my life it would not have happened.  It was not like I sat there for years moaning about my situation never doing anything to fix it and was just walking down the street one day and BLAM new job offered to me just out of the blue.  That would be truly lucky.  No I truly struggled, and had some “bad luck” in the process as well. I persevered and saw what I was trying to accomplish through until I achieved success.

If you are a person who finds yourself quoting that same line of hating the lucky look at the circumstances that got the person there.  What effort did they actually put in to get to where they are, or have, or whatever it is you may be coveting that they have going in their life that you do not?  Make a goal, come up with a plan, deal with the obstacles, be flexible, vent when things aren’t going your way but keep going, and in the end make a better life for yourself.  Being “lucky” isn’t always just happenstance by itself and it’s not always easy.

When you achieve success do not forget to thank those who helped get you there even if all they did was lend you an ear (or read your rantings on Facebook). 


“Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

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And just an update, if you are wondering, I LOVE my new job and department even after 3 months of being there.  Taking the reigns of you own life is a good thing.

Much Love!