Welcome to this very special day, and thank you much for
being here with us.  This world is a much richer place for your
presence in it, and during no time of the year do we focus on
the value and beauty of our fellow human beings as much as
we do at Christmas.  May we one day do so all year long. . . . 

The Promise of the Doll
Ruth C. Ikerman

One Gift to Give

The Gift of a Child
Mary Ann Matthews

All I Want for Christmas
tom walsh

We have plenty of quotations and passages on Christmas available
for you on our Christmas page--please enjoy it!

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past,
courage for the present, hope for the future.
It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow
with blessings rich and eternal, and that every
path may lead to peace.

Agnes M. Pharo

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.
To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy,
is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Calvin Coolidge

The most vivid memories of Christmases past are usually not
of gifts given or received, but of the spirit of love,
the special warmth of Christmas worship,
the cherished little habits of home.

Lois Rand

The Promise of the Doll
Ruth C. Ikerman

When I met my friend on the crowded street, she held out her hand to me and said, "I hope you can help me.  I'm desperate."  Wearily she explained, "I'm about to cry and it's all over a doll.  I simply have to find this doll for my granddaughter."

As tears filled her eyes, I remembered the terrible shock we all had felt over the death of her daughter who had been such a vivacious young mother until stricken several months before.  The young husband was doing a fine job with the little girl, but it was on the grandmother that much of the burden of planning for good things remained.  And this explained her Christmas errand.

"I blame myself entirely," she told me, "for not starting earlier, but I never thought it would be a problem to find one of these special dolls.  Yet there is not one of this variety left in town."

I asked her, "Well, why can't you settle for another kind of doll?"

She shook her head.  "One of the last things my daughter ever said to me before the pain got so bad was how sorry she was that she had refused to buy this doll for her little girl.  

She told me she had thought the child was too young for such a doll, and had refused to buy it for her birthday, supposing there were lots of occasions ahead when she could get it for her."

Then she told the rest of the story.  The little girl had come to her mother's bedside and asked whether the doll might arrive at Christmastime.  The young mother grasped the tiny hand in hers and said, "I promise you this for Christmas."  Then she had asked her own mother to do this one thing, "Just make sure that my little girl gets that doll this Christmas."

Now my friend was about to fail in her mission.  "It's all my fault," she kept repeating.  "I waited until too late.  It will take a miracle now."

Secretly I agreed, but I tried to keep up a polite facade of courage.  "Maybe the child has forgotten, and will be happy with something else."

Grimly my friend replied, "She may forget, but I won't."  We parted to go our separate ways.

With my mind only half on my shopping, I found the ribbon a neighbor wanted to finish a baby blanket she was making.  A few minutes later I stopped at her door to leave the package and was invited inside.

Her two little girls sat on the floor, playing with their dolls.  As I sat down, I noticed that one of the dolls was the same type my friend was seeking.  Hopefully I asked, "Can you remember where you bought that doll?"

My friend gave me her warmhearted smile.  "That's not a doll," she said, "she's a member of the family, and as near as I can see she probably was born and not made.  She came to us by plane from a favorite aunt in the East."

So I told her that I had a friend who was searching frantically for such a doll for the little girl whose mother had passed away during the year.  Apparently unaware of us, the two children played happily.  The mother and I spoke in adult words about facing loss at the holiday time, and how much we wished I could help my friend.

Later when I got up to leave, the two little girls followed me to the door.

"Dolly is ready to leave, too," they told me.  Sure enough, she was dressed in a red velveteen coat and hat with a white fur muff.

"Where is dolly going?" I asked.

They laughed happily.  "With you, of course.  You know where the lady lives, don't you--the one who needs the doll so bad?"

I started to tell them that of course I couldn't take this doll.  then I looked at their faces, happy in the moment of giving.  If I say the wrong thing now, something within my heart warned, I may ruin their joy of giving for the rest of their lives.  Silently I took the doll, fumbling with my car keys so they did not see the mist over my eyes.

Their mother asked, "Are you both sure you want to do this?"  They answered, "Yes, we do. . . ."  The mother put her arms around them tenderly.

Later I rang the doorbell of my friend.  "Don't ask me how I got it, for I can't talk just yet.  The doll is a little smudgy, but the worn places are from kisses and maybe they won't show under the Christmas lights."

She fondled the doll as if it were made of precious metal.  Tears of joy welled up in her eyes when I finally was able to tell the story.

"How can I ever thank those children enough?" she asked.

"They already have received a blessing greater than anything you or I could give them," I told her.  "I saw their faces when they offered me the doll to bring to you."

And it was true.  In the moment of giving they had also received, in ways past our finding out.  A promise could be kept, linking here with there, in the eternal circle of love of which the great gift of Christmas itself is a part.

Living Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement.  Our articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live life.  Take
from them what you will, and disagree with whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you each week.

"I just stand there and shine," she told me.  I've never forgotten that response.

Sue Monk Kidd

Eyes Wide Open
tom walsh

All I Want for Christmas

This Christmas promises to be a nice one, a comfortable one, a hopeful one.  We have many reasons to be thankful, and we're not struggling nearly as much as we have been in the past.  We still have a long way to go in several different areas, but for the most part, things are going quite well.

Of course, I'm fortunate to be able to say that.  We don't live in Afghanistan or the Gaza strip or in a so-called third-world country in which people struggle for food and clothing and work.  I work hard, but I'm fortunate to have a job.  I'm fortunate to have the means to take care of a family, and I'm fortunate to have a home in which I can draw a nice hot bath after a long day of work.  I know this, and I feel a great deal of gratitude when I think of all we have.

But when Christmas comes and we start to think about giving and receiving, our focus isn't generally on what we have, but on what we could have, what may be, what may happen.  We tend to think about what we'd be able to do with this or that, and how our lives would change if we had this or that.  It's nice to imagine these things, but our imaginings are so often centered around material things that we know can't help us in the long term that the days and weeks after Christmas are often filled with a bit of disappointment.

One of my favorite Christmas songs was written by David Foster and Linda Thompson Jenner; it's called "Grown-up Christmas List," and its chorus goes like this:

"No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts.
Everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end.
This is my grown-up Christmas list."

The ideas here are timeless, and they're relevant to all of us, all the time.  If these few things would come to pass, life on this planet would become a great joy for everyone, and we'd be able to focus on developing the parts of ourselves that we tend to ignore when we're struggling in other areas--we rarely grow in one area when we're worried or preoccupied with another area.  One of the reasons that many people stay in debt, for example, is that they get so worried about their money situation that they can't work on improving other areas of their lives that may help them deal with the debt.

All this said, I come to what I would love to have as a gift this Christmas:  the ability to learn from all the people I meet and all the things that happen to me.  I would love to be able to make my life more fulfilling and to be able to teach others about living full, happy lives, but I can't do so unless I put behind me many of my own behaviors that prevent me from learning lessons and applying them to my life.  For example, I often tend to discount what some people say simply because I don't feel comfortable with them, or because they tend to behave in ways that I'm not fond of -- perhaps they tend to insult others or gossip or steal from work and brag about it.  But their behaviors aside, there's still something to learn from everyone, and I often discount someone as a source of learning when I really shouldn't.

I also don't apply lessons as quickly as I could -- I learn things, but it sometimes takes me forever to apply the knowledge to my life.  I've learned that encouraging others is a great way to help them to grow and advance in life, but I still don't encourage others nearly as often as I could.  I've learned that taking things personally usually is uncalled for and destructive, but I still take things personally when I really shouldn't.

If I could have this gift, I know that I would be much better at helping other people to grow and to flourish as human beings, and I would be better at contributing to their happiness.  Imagine that:  I could help others to lead happy lives!

So that's it:  that's all I want for Christmas.  I've checked the malls and the department stores, and even the supermarkets and convenience stores, but I haven't been able to find anything similar.  None of the online stores that I shop at  offer anything similar, and I haven't seen any commercials on TV that offer what I want.  So where can I get this gift?  Who's going to give it to me?  Hmm. . . . maybe I'll just have to find it inside of myself and give it to myself as a stocking stuffer -- my guess is that this gift isn't going to take up a lot of space.

If you know where I can get this gift, let me know, okay?  I really would appreciate it!

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