She smiled back reluctantly when I smiled at her.  It is unlikely that I will ever know her name or whether she has family or friends.  Her personal circumstances will remain unknown to me. Her painfully slow movements were not appropriate for the busy cashier's booth that she occupied.

She appeared to be oblivious to the growing line of Christmas shoppers showing the strain.  With an air of boredom she honoured so-called "Price Matching."  Without a word she examined and returned worn competitors' flyers to customers and adjusted prices.  Not a word of greeting.  No expression of thanks.  Customer after customer.

With growing impatience and stoic silence customers filed through her aisle and finally whisked out the door relieved.  Then I ~ silently like the others ~ stood in front of this lady.  She slowly, painstakingly scanned each item in triple-slow motion.

Whatever is she doing? I asked myself.  It is unlikely that I will ever know or understand.  What I do know is that when I looked into her face and without a word, I smiled at her, she completed the transaction and for the first time in three-quarters of an hour ~ most likely an eight hour shift ~ she uttered the words "Merry Christmas.  Have a good day."


~ lbw

Random Acts of Kindness ~

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless."
~ Mother Teresa (1910 - 1997) Abanian nun, won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.

"T'was her thinking of others that made you think of her."
~ Elizabeth Browning (1806 - 1861) English poet.

"If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again."
~ William Penn (1644 - 1718) English writer, philosopher.


"When I give I give myself."
~ Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) "Father of Free Verse," American poet, essayist, journalist.

"The quality of mercy is not strained;
it dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven'
upon the place beneath; it is twice blessed;
it blesseth him that giveth and him that takes."
~ Wm Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) English playwright.

"My religion is very simple.  My religion is kindness."
~ The Dalai Lama, Tibetan spiritual leader.

"We do not remember days, we remember moments."
~ Cesare Pavese (1908 - 1950) Italian poet, writer.

"Let us be kinder to one another."
~ Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) English writer.

First Attempt at Bread-Machine Baking

Read recently in a vintage cookbook: "There is nothing worse than a wife who can cook but who won't, unless it is a wife who loves to cook but can't!"

Plant a Lemon Pit

This tiny plant is the beginning of a lemon tree.  Popular at Christmas are attractively packaged bulbs to be given as gifts,  Nurtured throughout the dull winter months, these can bring pleasure to anyone.  Amaryllis and paper whites are easily grown indoors.  The blooms brighten a room.

Add a lemon tree to your window-sill gardening.  It is inexpensive, fun to watch, requires only sunshine and water ~ but start early.  This little lemon tree is a year old.

(The adventurous hollyhock is a bonus.)
lbw

The first robin appeared on a Christmas card in 1882.  The little bird, a distinctive sight in winter in Britain, has been one of the most popular subjects.

"In 1880 the sending of cards was a common practice, encouraged by the availability of the penny post [First class mail was global for one penny] and improved printing techniques.  Innocent contentment, mirth and, above all, good nature were more often than not the sentiments expressed on Victorian Christmas cards..."

Contemporary Christmas Card



Early 1900s Post Card



~ The Spirit of Christmas ~ Past Evocative Memories of Years Gone By, Linda Clements, Todtri Productions Limited., 1996. 

"Christmas would not be Christmas but for the happy interchange of wishes..."
~ Charles Dickens

 

Charles Dana,
Editor,
The New York Sun, Dec.,1897.

Dear Virginia,
     Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little.
     In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.
     Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
     He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance, to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Early 1900s Post Card

     Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in Fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in chimneys on Christmas evening to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove?

     Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.

     Did you ever see Fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there.

     You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.

     Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.

     Is it real?

     Ah, Virginia, in all the world there is nothing else real and abiding.

          No Santa Claus? Thank God, he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia…nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

The Editor

(Charles Dana, The New York Sun, 1897 ~ in answer to a letter from a little girl, asking “Is there a Santa Claus?”)

"The best teacher, until one comes to adult pupils, is not the one who knows most, but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and the wonderful which slips into the infantile comprehension.  A man of high intelligence, perhaps, may accomplish the thing by a conscious intellectual feat.  But it is vastly easier to the man (or woman) whose habits of mind are naturally on the plane of a child's.  The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike."

~ H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) American journalist, editor, critic.

As we send our children and grandchildren back to school this morning, let us vow to support the voices of reason.  Let us take a minute to write, to e-mail, to out-shout the self-serving rhetoric of pro-gun advocates screaming outdated legislation. lbw