MM203 - Christmas Memories Pt. 2

Paul shares some Christmas memories from a time when he was a young married man and had only one child.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello, let's go ahead and continue on with the season of Christmas and I feel like sharing. So I'm going to. That's a great thing about being the benevolent dictator of this show, is I get to do what I want when I want to do it. That's right, and I didn't get to this position overnight, it took a little while. Going back thinking about Christmas Memories. I've got a lot of very fond Christmas Memories, and one of those and this is one that my wife and I share with each other and we talked about, we have for 20+ years now, is when my wife and I were a young married couple and we had we moved into an apartment and this apartment was part of a large house.
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You know, many cities in America, there are large Victorian houses big houses two-story houses, and what do they do? Someone will buy the house and they'll divide it up, you know Upstairs/Downstairs and the divided into Apartments, and we were in one of those types of homes was a large house. It was probably over 40 years old at least when we moved into it, maybe older. So it had really high ceilings. We were on the first floor, and we had high ceilings probably at least 10', 10 foot ceilings, and the first year that we were there this is when we're a young married couple our oldest son, our first son Jarrad was just a toddler at the time.
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He wasn’t quite 3-years-old and that's a special time in a little kid's life. Because you know when a child is one or two, you can buy them Christmas presents and you can give them things, but the fact the matter is is you know, a really young child can't really appreciate it. They just as soon play with the wrapping paper in the bows is any kind of a toy. It's not until they get into that pre-kindergarten stage that they can appreciate the Wonder of the shiny, you know, presence and the lights and the colors and all that. So Jarrad was, he wasn't quite 3-years-old yet.
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He was almost three at Christmas time and his mother and I, we went out we said we're going to get a Christmas tree, obviously, and we wanted to get a live one or a real one a genuine Christmas tree went to a lot in the snow. It was snowing and purchased a tree purchased a big tree, a tall tree. Tied it to the top of the car, because I did not have a pickup truck then, and did as most people do. You know tied it to the top of the car and drove it home and we set that thing up and it was almost as tall as the ceiling, it filled up the living room.
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It was a giant beautiful tree, and Nancy and I decorated it with all the lights and everything, and she started wrapping Christmas presents for Jarrad. Remember, this is the time we only had one child. So you'll have one child you dote on them and you spoil them and she went out and she bought all kinds of things that you know, a three-year-old would like, and she bought coloring books and she bought this's and she bought that, and rather than take the crayons and the coloring book and wrap them all in one or take all the coloring books and wrap them up.
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She wrapped every single individual coloring book, and she wrapped the crayons, and that kid had so many presents underneath the tree that when he woke up on Christmas morning, he came out into the living room and I'll never forget this. I'll never forget him standing in the doorway. He had those footie pajamas, you know, the fuzzy footie pajamas that you put your toddlers in, because they're so cute and it keeps them all warm and snuggly. Well, he had yellow footie pajamas on, and he walked into the living room and he stopped and he stood and the tree was all lit up.
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It was filled, you know with presents underneath it. and he stared wide-eyed and then we told him he could go ahead and open. So we started handing him presents, we handed him so many, that he got bored with it, and got tired of opening presents. He didn't even want to finish he wanted to play with the stuff that he had and I laughed and I still tease my wife for rapping every single individual coloring book and box of crayons and everything, and she wanted to make sure that he had enough presence open and he did he had plenty of presents to open
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It was one of those memories at that, 25 years or while Jarrad's not quite 30 yet, but all these years later, we still remember that that Christmas and that apartment. We only spent maybe a year and a half in that apartment, but we remember we remember that giant tree. I remember him in those yellow footie pajamas, sitting at you know at the foot of the Christmas tree unwrapping every single coloring book and box of crayons and what have you. I hope that you have memories like that and if you're a young person, if you're a young, recently married person, if you have little kids, I hope that you have the opportunity to spend the time with them to take the time to spend with them, and you know, it's tough.
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Let me tell you what, you know it we're doing okay now. I mean, I have a car to drive and have a home to live in and I have food to eat. So we're doing alright, but it's hard when you are a young married couple it's difficult. If you are a young married couple right now and you're frustrated because it's tough, understand this. That's the way the world is. It is and the reason that you're able to do it, is because you're young. That's why people have babies and kids when they're young because they have time and patience and energy. But I hope that you, during the season, are able to take some time, make some memories and they don't have you don't have to do everything all at once.
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It doesn't have to be Monumental. Sometimes it's just the simplest things. Sometimes it's just the simplest things that really matter, so I'm not going to belabor the point. I just wanted to share that with you. I hope that you appreciate it, and I hope that you're out there wherever you happen to be enjoying Christmas Memories with your family. Alright, folks. I am your host Paul Markel and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.