4. Use your talents/gifts to serve the world - the best way for you to serve the world is in doing what you love and/or loving what you do. You have a core genius. You have within you the most wonderful talents and gifts. How do you know what they are - its simple - you feel BRILLIANT when you're pursuing them! So pursue them and keep nourishing them. Then start asking questions like - how can I use my talents and gifts to serve my family, my community, my country, the world? How can I begin to earn an income from what I love and how then can I get it to grow? As you take each step on such a path you leave behind a path which is illuminated with love, with kindness, with joy, with happiness, with passion and it acts as a lighthouse for those who find themselves in stormy seas. Does it take courage? Absolutely! And this is one of the traits you have in abundance - simply take the first step and keep going!
So you see, the term "Christmas in July" doesn't have clear etymological origins. Any schlub with an agenda could have coined it. My own inside source tells me it has to do with the guy who runs the whole Christmas thing, St. Nick himself-but for vastly different reasons. My source? Peter Cottontail, the Easter Bunny
Wholesale Ray Ban Sunglasses, of course. He tells me that when the Puritans in England banned the celebration of Christmas in 1647
buy asics trainers, because of its many pagan trappings, there was an outcry from good little street urchins across the land. Father Christmas (as he is still known in Jolly Old England) heard it, and established an underground "Freedom" movement, which (wink-wink) celebrated the birth of some non-descript, but very earth-changing event. The day he chose? July 4th. Tiny stockings were hung over hearths, featuring a star that represented the one in Bethlehem. The red and white stripes stood for the suffering He would endure to purify souls from sin. Remember, this is all very hush-hush, so don't tell any of our modern-day secular-humanist Puritans-that is, the ACLU, and People for the American Way. If this gets out, we may lose both Christmas
and Independence Day celebrations from the public sector as being too religious!
Well, we saw it happen again last month-"Christmas in July!" Retailers and merchandisers just can't seem to resist, and who can blame them? If you were in their shoes (even Guccis need folded newsprint tucked inside when the soles wear through), and saw how your bottom-line was bottoming out this Summer, you'd probably call Rent-a-Santa to hire a guy to dance, sweat, and twirl a sign in front of your business too. This year, Kmart and Toys 'R' Us showed their Christmas in July spirit by joining the movement in a big way, and helping us to beat that nasty old holiday rush. For most people, though, it's the rush they get from the rush that brings them out.
3. Create a new identity - we are creative beings. Instead of having an identity which is attached to anything outside yourself, which is subject to change and ultimately beyond your control, base it on the infinite wisdom and greatness that is within you. This can never be taken away from you, recession or otherwise. You can begin to affirm to yourself "I am an infinitely creative and resourceful person", "My greatest hour has yet to come", "I am so happy doing what I love and loving what I do and getting richly rewarded for it", "the greatest moment of my life is this one - the more I truly live it, the more fulfilled I am and the more the future blossoms." Its also a good idea to remind yourself of what you really like/love about yourself - make a list and smile with every wonderful trait you posess. And let those you love know how wonderful it is that they are part of your life.
Forty years prior, however, Preston Sturges wrote and directed a movie by the same name. It's about a contest-entering fanatic, whose office coworkers play a trick on him by sending him a phony telegram (the precursor to Nigerian spam-scams) telling him he's won a slogan contest and $25
jimmy choo outlet,000. So he lavishes his friends and family with presents and proposes to his girlfriend-things you normally only do at Christmas, and when you have money to burn. Well, everybody learns their lessons, and, of course, he gets the girl. She realizes she loves him for himself, and not his pot o' gold, which today would just about pay for Junior's Tai Chi classes. I haven't seen the film, but I'm confident Mr. Sturges knew how to resolve storylines satisfactorily.
Continuing my online research thread, I visited "christmasinjuly" dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, and dot-info. Two of them were simply online real estate someone had invested in, but the other two were clearly patriotic and linked Christmas to the
birth of a nation (not a movie directed by Preston Sturges). One of them, in North Carolina, even begins the celebration at 6 PM on July 3, which, by my calendar, would make it Christmas in July Eve. That's when the entire population of 1,000 West Jeffersonians gets together with hundreds of their closest friends and relatives from nearby Wakesboro and Jonesville to wave flags, explode colorful chemicals, listen to music, and show the world how Christmas in July should be observed. Interestingly, this wild-eyed bunch doesn't attempt to lay claim to its genesis.
While doing my research for this column (yes, I do research, but the only facts I'm interested in are ones I can make fun of), I found out the "fact" that nobody really knows how the celebration of Christmas in July began. Some blame it on Irish tourists who were visiting New South Wales in July of 1980, and, finding themselves surrounded by snow, instinctively began buying each other gifts and drinking hot totties-though not necessarily in that order. These Irish revelers weren't leprechauns, but that didn't prevent local merchants from finding their pot o' gold-and suddenly a solemn religious tradition was born.
The best solution to all our problems is to celebrate Christmas in July, August, September, Oct-well, you get the idea. Then people will keep spending their stimulus bribes-I mean "packages" all year-round, and when that's gone, they'll continue to emulate the government by racking up debt for their posterity to deal with. The economy will hum like there's no tomorrow-because there won't be. See? Problems solved.
jimmy choo outlet Christmas in July, August, Etc_5
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