Oh Those Tacky Christmas Lights!

Christmas lights take me back to the innocence of my childhood, to a time when my parents would gather me and my five siblings and put us in the station wagon with winter coats over our pajamas and we would ride around the neighborhood and look at the Christmas lights displayed on other people's houses.

Did you do that too?


One of the houses on the Richmond Tacky Lights Christmas tour
Photo courtesy of Richmond.com

Those were the days when Christmas lights were larger than they are today -- no LEDs back then -- and they only came in blue, green, red, yellow and cream.  Pink and turquoise were nowhere to be found and I don't remember anyone ever having only white lights on their Christmas tree or on their house as is popular today.

 

It's a warm and cozy memory for me, made more dramatic because we would view the lights in the darkness of night and everything seemed magical from the safety of a car with your parents in the front seat.  Those were also the days when there were no seat belts so the babies would be lying in a carry-all and we would giggle and wiggle and slide around on the seats and press our faces to the cold glass of the car window and pick our favorite lights.

 

Today, my 23-year-old son absolutely adores Christmas lights!  There can never be enough Christmas lights for him and he especially loves a section of houses in Maryland that we pass on the way to his grandparents house where the neighbors are in competition with each other to see who can put up the most lights on the houses and in their yards.  I can't imagine what their electrical bill looks like.


Another house on the Richmond Tacky Lights Christmas tour
Photo Courtesy of Richmond.com

 

My son now lives in Richmond, VA and yesterday he tweeted about the Tacky Lights Christmas tour in Richmond, VA which of course is right up his alley.  I'm sure he will check out a few of the over-the-top displays which are part of a tradition started in Richmond in 1985 when local DJ Mad Dog Gottlieb booked a Winn bus and took a select group of Richmonders on a "tacky lights" tour of 10 to 12 houses.

Who knew that Richmond took such pride in its' creative abundance of Christmas lights?

Initially, houses needed a minimum of 10,000 lights.  Then it was decided that houses needed up to 20,000 and 30,000  Now, houses must have a minimum of 40,000 lights to be considered as part of the tour.  Can you imagine how long it takes for people to string this stuff up?

But what is tacky to one person is exciting and beautiful to another.

I can't help but think that there are lots of families out there this year creating their own memories by gathering their young children into their cars at night, riding around to ooh and ahh at the blinking, twinkling, multi-colored unbelievable houses full of Christmas Cheer!

Another house on the Richmond Tacky Lights Christmas tour
Photo Courtesy of Richmond.com

A Daily Om

We all need a mental health break, don't we?  I just didn't expect to find one downtown in a city park.

While walking down the street yesterday during lunch hour in the downtown area of the nation's capitol, I spied a large white tent set up across the street in a park known as McPherson Square.  The tent reminded me of one of those large white tents that people use at outdoor wedding receptions.  I could only see the back of the tent so, ever the curious one, I walked over to check it out.

Somebody must be promoting something, I thought, but from the first glance of it, I couldn't tell exactly what.

Turns out it was Mental Health; as in come inside the tent and take a rest from your daily work routine or from whatever is happening to you.

When I got closer to the tent, I could see a rather small blue, yellow and white sign saying "Mental Health Break, Noon to 7 pm, May 6."  Yes, I thought, this looks interesting.  The front of the tent was wide open and inside were low white tables and cushions for seating.  Small groups of people were sitting and standing, talking and reading.  Other tables were set up with free goodies such as blue balls that people could hold and squeeze to relieve stress or anxiety, and there also were water bottles along with green tea for drinking.  There was even a photobooth for quick laughs if you wanted to take silly pictures.

 

Children Practicing Yoga
Photo Courtesy The Daily Om

Thanks to The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, which was sponsoring the mental health event, people could also take yoga classes outside of the tent for relaxation under a cluster of trees. A few people taking a class that had already started were either sitting on chairs or sitting on mats with their eyes closed and arms stretched out, palms towards the sun.

It looked so un-DC.

Yet it was a unique concept.  Everything went to improving the human experience and community.

 

Here, a couple of blocks from the White House and The Washington Post, two centers of business that I think most people would associate with stress and hypercompetition, was a place dedicated -- at least for one day -- to finding your inner self and "happy place."

 

I associate, and I'm sure you do too, a mental health break or a mental health day to calling in sick from work.  We've all done it at least once in our work lives or know someone who's done it. Either you've been working on a project or just putting in too many long days and you need a break.  You're not really sick but you know you're going to get sick if you don't take a much needed break.  Thus, the mental health day.

 

 

But this mental health tent was sending a different message from what I could see,  which is: we are all capable of self-care at any time of the day in any place and with some practice, we can learn to  turn down the extraneous volume surrounding us and instead find inner calm and peace.

 

As author and wellness coach Kris Carr has written, "When you understand your mind you can harness its power to achieve more than you imagined possible.  The space between the noise is where God/dess lives.  There are many answers there.  Don't shy away from visiting."

 

Forgiveness

Someone close to me is emotionally stuck on certain negative events that happened in her life decades ago.  She talks about them in great detail and tells others how she felt when these things happened to her.  Listening over and over again to her retelling of these events doesn't seem to help her move forward and get past what happened.

 

It's as though she has a list in her head and she mentally checks these things off every day to remind herself that someone did something wrong to her.  It is sad and frustrating to watch someone concentrate on the same past events and yet not be able to say good-bye to them.

 

Constantly being a part of this conversation is teaching me in a new way about being positive about life and truly forgiving.  Not just saying you're sorry or accepting someone else's apology because you are expected to, but really and truly getting it out of your system and meaning it.

 

 

 

 

Bad things, unfair things and nasty things do happen to us.  Unfortunately that's what happens in life.  But great things, positive things, happy things also happen to us.  It's up to us to either choose the negative or the positive and then go ahead and live our lives.

 

A friend explained it to me this way: if you decide to hold on to something that makes you angry or "wronged," then every day you have to find the negative energy within yourself to go over that event and how it felt and what you think should have happened instead of what did actually happen.

 

That's a lot of baggage to drag around.

 

Instead, forgiveness is something you practice once.  You look at what happened, realize we are all human and make mistakes, forgive and then let it go.  Really let it go.  And then move on.

 

A colleague at work has the following saying about forgiveness taped to her desk.  The author is unknown but every time I read it I stop and think about what it means and commit to bringing the spirit of forgiveness into my life.

Here's the saying:

"Forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge.

It is the act of untying yourself from thoughts and feelings that bind you to the offense committed against you.

When you embrace forgiveness, you embrace peace, hope, gratitude and joy."

Peace!

Blessed Easter

Have A Blessed Easter

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10

Sentimental Christmas Stockings

Stockings Belonging to Daddy, Mommy & R

 

 

" . . . And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care;

 In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. . ."

From "Twas The Night Before Christmas"
By Clement Clarke Moore

 

 

These  are our sentimental Christmas stockings, hung on our fireplace every year, in hopes that Santa Claus will think we have been good and fill them with lots of treats.

 

I know they are a bit on the tacky side but they represent a lot of good feelings and great memories.

 

They don't match each other or the living room where they hang and certainly don't look like those hip and elegant stockings you see in the Pottery Barn catalogue or stockings you may see in the display windows of Sak's or Macy's but they are our Christmas stockings and we love them.

 

My son picked them out all by himself when he was five years old.  The Santa Claus stocking was for his father, the gingerbread one is for me, his mom, and the Christmas tree is for him.  I remember watching him in the store looking at all the different choices of Christmas stockings and at first I think he was a little overwhelmed.

 

He walked around and around and kept looking and picking up all the different stockings and then decided on these three.  He had such a big smile on his face when he handed them to me and was so excited that we were actually going to buy the ones he chose.

 

Every year he looks forward to hanging them up on the fireplace, even the Christmas after his father died.

 

I wasn't going to put decorations up that year because, well because, it was enough for me to get out of bed and form a complete sentence never mind dealing with Christmas decorations.  But my son insisted we get a tree and put up the rest of decorations. 

 

All that I did was buy the tree and bring the boxes down from the attic.  My son and a wonderful friend of his did the rest.  I was in and out of the room while they were working and placing the decorations anywhere they wanted.  I really didn't care what it looked like.

 

I do remember coming into the room when my son opened up the box containing the Christmas stockings and I sortof held my breath to see if he would hang two stockings or three.  At that time, my son had a lot of anger about his father which was perfectly normal.  He was angry that his father had died, that his father had left him, that his father hadn't made better health decisions and he was angry that it was Christmas and his father wasn't there. 

 

I felt a lot of these things too but there's a big difference between an adult dealing with those thoughts and feelings and a thirteen-year-old boy.

 

I watched as he held the stockings and walked towards the fireplace.  I truly expected to see him hang only two, but then he surprised me and put up all three.  He didn't say anything and neither did I.

 

It's been quite a journey since that very first Christmas after his father's death.  I admire how my son has handled this difficult situation and the adult that he has become.  He is amazing!

 

My son still loves Christmas and EVERYTHING associated with it.

 

And every year, he still always hangs three stockings.

 

Being All In

 

 

 

 

 

This holiday season, I am appreciating the endless decorations of bows, bells and evergreens, listening to the traditional Christmas music that seems to be playing everywhere and trying to find wonderful presents for those that I love.

 

I've been to a few Christmas parties and also donated to schools and other groups who are dependent upon help from others so that they may continue their community work that is so crucial to helping men, women and children who are homeless and without a place to go for regular shelter and meals.

 

I am trying to give of myself and think positive thoughts because I know if I put myself in that mindset then I will act positively and carry on in a meaningful way.

 

I know there is no right or wrong way to celebrate the holidays, there is just what we are comfortable with and what we feel is right for ourselves.

 

But I still don't feel that I'm "all in" to the Christmas spirit.

 

Maybe I'm overthinking it and I should just allow it to happen rather than wondering why I don't particularly feel it.  I'm not sure.

 

Maybe it's that I feel emotionally spent by personal situations where I am constantly trying to be supportive but it doesn't seem to be making a difference.  That is a hard one.  I think we all have come up against that kind of situation.  I am trying my best, and so are others, but at a certain point, you can only do so much.

 

I guess at the end of the day, it's really all about love.

 

How are you feeling this holiday season?

Holiday Kindness

New York City Police Officer Helps Homeless Man

Since everything can feel exaggerated during the holidays, doing one kind act can affect change and make a difference in someone else's life.  Many times when I pass a homeless person on the street, especially if it's a woman, I think, "There but for the grace of God go I." 

If I can, I give money or food.  But the story below about the actions of a New York City police officer shows there is the opportunity to go further.  So many times we read or hear about the negative side of life; the violence and disrespect towards each other.

And then someone jumps out and performs a simple act of human kindness.

This story is what the holiday spirit is all about and it challenges me and, perhaps you, to do one kind thing for someone else this holiday season.  Just one.  I donate clothes and canned goods but I can do more.

Maybe it's a smile you give to a co-worker you don't like or maybe you call a friend or a relative you haven't spoken to in a long time.  Maybe you rake a neighbor's leaves or maybe you bring a meal to someone who has just lost a loved one.

It's up to you.  Your kind act probably won't go viral as this one did, but you gave of yourself and helped another person and that's also what life is all about.

NYPD officer's act of kindness goes viral on Facebook

Published November 29, 2012

FoxNews.com

 

NEW YORK – An NYPD officer's act of kindness has gone viral on Facebook.

Jennifer Foster, a Florence, Ariz., tourist, posted a photograph of the officer giving a homeless man a pair of boots and socks on a frigid night in Times Square on Nov. 17.

"'I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let's put them on and take care of you,"' Foster quoted DePrimo as saying to the homeless man. "The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man. The officer expected NOTHING in return and did not know I was watching."

The image became an instant hit on the NYPD's Facebook page. More than 308,861 users "liked" his generosity as of Thursday morning.

Newsday identified him as Larry DePrimo of Holbrook, Long Island. He's assigned to the 6th Precinct in Manhattan.

The homeless man said he'd never had a pair of shoes. DePrimo purchased a pair of insulated boots and thermal socks and put them on the man's feet.

DePrimo said the man "smiled from ear to ear. It was like you gave him a million dollars."

He told The New York Times that "it was freezing out and you could see the blisters on the man’s feet. I had two pairs of socks and I was still cold.” He learned the man's shoe size was 12.

The police officer went into a nearby Sketchers shoe store and the manager offered him his employees' discount, which brought the price of the boots from $100 to $75, the paper reported.

"Most of us are New Yorkers and we just kind of pass by that kind of thing," Jose Cano, 28, a manager at the store, told the Times. "Especially in this neighborhood."

New Orleans Deserves A Break

 

  

My son drywalling in New Orleans

  

The people who live in the magical city of New Orleans know about resilience.  In fact, Webster's dictionary should probably publish a picture of the city of New Orleans next to the word "resilience" to add depth to the word's definition.

 

Residents of New Orleans have proved over and over that they do have an incredible inner strength that gives them the "can-do" attitude to forge ahead and bounce back from natural disasters, the worst of which was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now is Hurricane Isaac.

 

The rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina is a cause that is close to my heart because my son traveled there twice and spent time clearing debris, painting houses, drywalling and even doing some tilework to help in that effort. He said reaching out to help and meet the people who owned the houses they worked on and walking through the communities that Katrina destroyed was heartbreaking but also rewarding and educational. 

 

I am hoping and praying for the safety of the city and its people because I never want to turn on the television again and see the devastation and desperation that aired when news stories showed New Orleans and its thousands of abandoned citizens after Katrina hit the city and caused millions of dollars in damage.

 

True to its spirit, New Orleans has taken more than its fair share from Mother Nature and has endured, as it will no matter what Isaac throws its way.  May the rebuilt and restrengthened levees hold back the deluge of rain because New Orleans definitely deserves a break!

 



My son (in sunglasses) and his friends

 

 

Gabby Giffords

Photo by CBSNews.com

If you google the word resilient, you'll be reading about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ.

Resilience is the ability to recover from a crisis, a dramatic life change or even failure.  Some people are born with resilience and others develop it. 

Resilience is when life hands you an awful situation and you turn it into an opportunity to learn or develop something about yourself.

Resilience is digging down deep within ourselves and finding the resources to cope with a changed life. 

To me, this is the essence of Gabby Giffords.

One year ago tomorrow, Giffords was speaking at a constituent event in Tucson, AZ, when 22-year-old Jared Loughner shot her in the head and then continued to shoot 18 others in the crowd.  Six people died, including a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge. 

Giffords has spent the past year on an unbelievable mental and physical journey learning again how to talk, walk and survive the emotional trauma of being shot at close range.  I can't imagine how hard and frustrating it has been for her to get to where she is today.  And she still has work in front of her.  But when you watch her on television, you have no sense of any of the difficulty she has experienced.  I think she has the most peaceful smile and I am inspired by her determination.

With her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, the two make a forbidable team.  They are scheduled to mark the one-year anniversary of the shooting during a candlelight vigil on Sunday, January 8 at the University of Arizona.  If you want to know what true love is then read this post from Maria Shriver's blog written by Mark Kelly about what he has learned from his incredible wife:

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope

By Mark Kelly

Our spouses are often our teachers, guiding us in ways that may be clear only in retrospect.

I have been struck by this realization again and again in the year since my wife, Gabby, was almost killed in an assassination attempt. As she struggled to regain her ability to speak, I became her student, remembering vital things she taught me years ago.

At first, she couldn’t say anything at all, which left her scared and stuck inside herself. I remember one particularly rough day, about a month after the shooting, when I came into Gabby’s room and found her sitting in her wheelchair, tears running down her face. She was hyperventilating, absolutely panicked.

Through her tears, Gabby motioned with her left hand, waving it by her mouth. It didn’t take me long to figure out what was wrong. She had tried to speak and no words came out. She was making some sounds, consonants and vowels, but no words. She cried and I cried with her. All I could do was reassure her. “It’ll get better,” I said. “I promise you.”

By mid-February 2011, six weeks after the shooting, she had begun formulating words, but they were often delivered haltingly or incorrectly. She got stuck on random words. No matter what she meant to say, the same word, “chicken,” often came out in a burst: “Chicken, chicken, chicken.”

For Gabby, it was terribly frustrating. And for those of us who loved her, it was dispiriting to see a woman who had been so articulate reduced to grasping for syllables. But in my role as a caregiver, I found myself buoyed by recalling Gabby’s voice from earlier times. I’d recommend that any spouse dealing with a traumatic situation reach back into the past for a meaningful memory. It can offer perspective, comfort – and a way forward.

In my case, I had never been a patient man. I’d always been a go-getter, focused on “the urgency of now.” By contrast, Gabby knew well the value of patience. As a state senator and then a U.S. congresswoman, she’d let her constituents in Arizona say whatever they needed to say without interrupting them. She interacted easily with everyone, young and old, able-bodied and infirm.

After she was injured, friends and family would often interrupt her, saying the words they thought she meant to say. They were trying to help, but I saw this only added to Gabby’s sense of powerlessness.

And so it was helpful to me to think back to a day in 2006, after my second space flight as an astronaut, when Gabby and I got to have lunch with the legendary British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Dr. Hawking is paralyzed due to a form of Lou Gehrig’s disease, and it takes him an excruciatingly long time to say anything.

That day, I quickly gave up trying to converse with him. But Gabby was just incredible. She intuitively knew what to do. She kneeled down in front of his wheelchair and said, “Dr. Hawking, how are you today?” Then she stared into his eyes and waited patiently and silently. He took ten minutes to reply, “I’m fine. How are you?”

She could have kneeled there for an hour, waiting for him to answer.

My memory of that encounter helped me understand how I’d need to interact with Gabby during her recovery. It’s almost like something out of The Twilight Zone. It was as if Gabby was giving me a message back in 2006: “Watch me. I will be your teacher. Someday you’ll have to be patient with me and this is how you’ll need to do it.”

At the time Gabby was shot, I was preparing to serve as commander of the next shuttle mission. Gabby was starting her third term in Congress. Had she not been shot on January 8, 2011, she was scheduled to undergo fertility treatment on January 10. We hoped she’d be pregnant soon.

Gabby had such a rich life before she was injured that one of her speech therapists, an aphasia expert, recently asked her: “Given all the pain and sadness, are you glad you survived?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Gabby said.

The therapist, Nancy Estabrooks, was struck by her lack of hesitation. “If you consider how much she had going for her, and how it all stopped abruptly,” Dr. Estabrooks said, “it’s not hard to imagine someone in that situation feeling suicidal, or losing the will to live.”

But again, Gabby was my teacher. I saw that her commitment to recover was clearly rooted in her innate optimism, her relentless drive, and in her relationship with those she loved. She’s doing so much better now. Her comprehension is 100%, she’s speaking in sentences, and she’s worked incredibly hard to keep improving. She spends forty hours a week in four kinds of therapy: physical, speech, occupational and music.

She’d like to return to Congress, and she knows that therapy is her only way to make that happen.

Meanwhile, just as Gabby has taught me so much, I’ve tried to find ways to help her see a path back to herself.

November 10th was our fourth wedding anniversary, and I surprised Gabby by inviting a cellist from the Houston Symphony to serenade us during dinner at our home. I put a white tablecloth on the kitchen table, lit candles and served a steak dinner. As the cellist played Bach, I explained to Gabby that the musician had suffered a traumatic brain injury after a 2009 motorcycle accident, and has since returned to work. “Look how beautifully he plays,” I said, hoping to help Gabby imagine her own continued recovery.

Like so many couples, Gabby and I have embraced the idea that we are each other’s teachers -- and that the lessons continue every day.

We’re excited by all the possibilities that await us in 2012, and by the things we’ll learn together along the way.

********
Mark Kelly was a captain in the United States Navy when he commanded the final mission of space shuttle Endeavour in May 2011. His wife, Gabrielle Giffords has represented Arizona’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2007. Their new joint memoir is titled Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.
You can purchase Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or wherever books are sold.

http://www.mariashriver.com/blog/2012/01/gabby-story-courage-and-hope

Holidays 101

This is to all of you who white-knuckled it through the holidays... After eight years, I know this for sure: you can make the holidays anything you want them to be. Only you know how much you can take of the 24-hour holiday music that follows you wherever you go, the marathon holiday parties and the general holly jolly holiday atmosphere.

This may sound simplistic but it's not.

 You need to give yourself permission to do what you think you can handle and nothing more.

You don't have to celebrate the holidays the way you did before your loved one died.

 There are no rules.

When my husband died in November of 2003, I was hit with a rapid succession of what are supposed to be celebrations: Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday and our wedding anniversary. They say that timing is everything and his death came at a particularly hard time of the year.

If I could have I would have gone away and traveled to some tropical place that wouldn't have reminded me of anything to do with those special days. But my son desperately wanted everything to remain the same so I whiteknuckled it and followed through on all the usual holiday rituals.

Eight years later, we have changed a few things and kept others. We come at the holidays from different places and now are more open to change. We have also come to the realization that the holidays are yours to define any way you want. And that's a truly merry thought.