Robbed at Christmas, but It’s Still A Wonderful Life…

Robbed at Christmas

Open message to the thieves that robbed our house and several others in the neighborhood prior to Christmas:

I hope that the gifts that were earmarked for family and friends and slated to go under the Christmas trees on our street bring you some sort of comfort.  I can only imagine the desperate times you must be experiencing that would entice you to track and follow a lone UPS driver as he made his rounds late on a Friday night. Running up the driveways, careful to avoid the 4 inches of white snow blanketing the grass, he breathed hard as he hurried to finish his route in order to begin his own Christmas preparations.

Perhaps you lay hunkered down in a parked car making a note of each house that the brown jacketed driver stopped at. Or maybe you had an accomplice who tailed the truck and wrote down addresses (although, how you could read them in the dark is beyond me…..wait….they must have been illuminated by the hundreds of Christmas lights brightening our homes). In any event, your heart must have been pounding in anticipation.  Knowing that you needed to score; yet not wanting to get caught.

You were so bold that some of the neighbors were actually at home at the time that you slinked off with your bag full of goodies. These are desperate times I know.  I give of my time to help many in my community who have lost their jobs, and in some cases their homes. My family has given generously to several food drives and gift tag collections at our church.  My son, along with several boys from his homeroom, have sponsored a family of four for Christmas.

So knowing that this is the worst economy in decades, I understand why you would stoop to such a despicable act.  But you know, when it came time to wrap the gifts on Christmas Eve and I realized that yet another shipment had been stolen on that same delivery day (thanks UPS tracking service!) and it was too late to replace the items in time for Christmas, I just felt sad…..

Grinch via Coaster500@photobucket

My husband and I resumed our Christmas Eve tradition of  putting out cookies for Santa and wrapping the remaining gifts while watching “It’s A Wonderful Life”.  But then as I watched George Bailey react to the kindness of the Bedford Falls community as they poured into his house on Christmas Eve and gave of the little that they had in order to help save the Bank, I realized that stolen gifts won’t remove the true spirit of Christmas.

The true spirit of Christmas today, no matter your beliefs, is love.

Love of family.

Love for friends.

Love for the communities in which we live.

So as the little bell on the Bailey Christmas tree tinkled and ZuZu said,

“Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”

a solitary tear rolled down my cheek and I gave thanks for the wonderful people in my life. Stolen gifts are just things that can eventually be replaced. No thief in the night can steal love….

Fast forward to Christmas morning:

A friend of my daughter’s saw her Facebook status about the robbery and she and her father drove over this morning to bring us a special gift. They wanted us to have something special in our time of loss.  Words can not express my appreciation for such a kindness- leaving their own family on Christmas morning to come and share with ours….

It truly is A Wonderful Life…

God Bless!

CONTEMPLATING FACEBOOK AS THE SNOW SOFTLY FALLS…..

Brrr…the temps have dropped and we finally received a little of the white stuff to grace our steeples and grounds.  The Christmas season has been a great time for me to unplug, unwind and re-connect in real space and time with family and friends.  I have managed to be on lock down for  Twitter for 48 hours+  now and even ignored the urge to check trending topics for the real deal on the  Christmas Day Terrorist Bombing Attempt. Instead, waited for the good old fashioned Cincinnati Enquirer to deliver the scoop to me.  I turned my Droid off at night and haven’t blogged on this site in a long while.  I have kept up with my poetry here and my personal Facebook Page in which livelyconversations have been playing out on my wall on the most obscure topics and minutia of my life.  For example this status update garnered 15 responses:

Really going retro and getting into watching classic movies and crocheting by the fire.

Or the post about what I was going to serve for Christmas Eve dinner- it saw over 20 responses:

Christmas Eve Tradition: Seafood Gumbo served over rice, Mixed Salad Greens with Craisens, Gorgonzola & pecans with Vinaigrette; home-made Brioche rolls & Rum Cake. Kids open one present- one more year and we start the midnight mass tradition. Gumbo has Andouille sausage, oysters, shrimp, chicken & of course, File.

What I like about Facebook is the community aspect that surrounds posts.  People jump in and comment and then have side conversations with each other on your wall- it become a free- for- all- word- fest.  I have friends from a wide walk of life, diverse in their backgrounds, experiences and decades in which we met and interacted in RL.  It is very cool to see how my friends who do not know each other, come together on my wall and end up FB friends themselves.

Oh, and just in case you were thinking of nosing around my page and being a voyeur of the conversations there, I gotta tell you that I am a strategic chick.  After all, my business is founded around the idea of Strategic Marketing Practices.  So, that being said I have a strategy for every piece of social media that I use.  I have two Facebook sites:  Personal FB Page for close friends and relatives and a C3 Business Page (otherwise known as a Fan Page) for professional friends and well, Fans of C3.  I keep my personal page pretty locked down, which sometimes proves difficult with the myriad of changes FB makes to their privacy policy, seemingly every couple of weeks!

Try searching me and you should only find my profile pic- no friends, no info, no albums of pics.  My groups were also blocked to search, but I think FB’s most recent changes make that an impossibility now as it is deemed public information.  So a warning to the wise- if you belong to a Voodoo Cult or something that your employer may wonder about, you might want to X it out.  Unless of course, you are steering your ship with complete transparency and authenticity.

Hmmn, didn’t mean to rant on about Facebook, but hey I go where my muse takes me!  Next post or so will be on my reflections of the past decade or maybe not…….

Seize the day, enjoy the outdoors, touch someone in real time!

Pics from my RL social experiences this holiday season:

Social Media Holiday Happy Hour

Christmas Eve

Old Friends Reuniting for Christmas!

Spending the Holidays With Friends Deep in the Woods of New Richmond, Oh.

Merry, Merry!

My first attempt at video for public broadcast.  No retakes, no notes- just a “press the Logitech button” and go.  Yeah, I have the Santa Hat- not really a hat person, but it kind of adds to the festive atmosphere.  Let me know what you think.  (Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, performed by Over The Rhine plays in the background.)