190.Christmas Stories: Imperfect Tree, Great Escape, Sally Nelly

This is a bonus episode including three stories appropriate for the Christmas Season.

The Imperfect Tree. Remember the Charlie Brown trees? The stick in the ground that served as a trunk with a few imperfect branches with scattered ornaments. I think the imperfectness of the tree spoke to the fun of the cartoon and the Charlie Brown character. It’s a good illustration on how imperfect life is. Lives aren’t perfect, relationships aren’t perfect, kids aren’t perfect. But imperfect works. It’s why we can reach out to others. It’s why we pray, why we give, why we provide content as entrepreneurs. It’s also a time to reflect on the birth of a Savior that wasn’t perfect. The stable that served as a birthing place wasn’t clean and sterilized. It was dirty, noisy and probably cold. Hay lined the bed Mary had to lay on to have her baby and then to rest on after giving birth. It was the lining of the manger for a newborn infant. It was an imperfect setting, yet perfect in many ways.

The Great Escape recalls the time the TSA agent said the words to my husband that none of us want to hear. “Can you please step aside sir?” The agents proceeded to tell us the dry gingerbread cookie mix we had purchased the previous day at an apple orchard had chemicals that alerted their system and they’d have to confiscate it. This confiscation episode got me wondering what the big deal about gingerbread men was in the first place. I found that the Gingerbread Man, also known as the Gingerbread Boy, first appeared in print in May 1875. It’s a fairy tale about a gingerbread man’s escape from pursuers until he was eventually caught by a fox.

I still found a way to make gingerbread cookies with our granddaughters this year, not mentioning the foiled escape from a fox. But the TSA episode was a good reminder of how our world changed when terrorists threatened our very existence by blowing up what we felt could last for many years. So live your life and cherish every moment this season by taking the time to make your own new memories with gratefulness of the simple freedoms we enjoy every day.

The Story of Sally Nelly. The year that I made a dozen bye-lo dolls, I gave every one of them away. One of them was to a wonderful woman leading a small group I attended weekly for a full year. Anne named her doll Sally Nellie. Every year’s Christmas card from then on would have a note in it that Sally Nellie still had a very special place in their home. She sat propped up, displayed on pillows on top of their bed. Every time Anne saw Sally Nelly, she was reminded of our dear friendship. To me, her notes reminded me of the fact that sometimes we don’t realize the impact a small gift can make on a person and on a life. Gifts can be given, whether or not it’s a bye-lo doll. Hopefully it can serve as a reminder and memento of a special friendship. Because friendships are worth far more than any doll or physical gift. I hope you take time out to develop and nurture friends, new and old, in your life this season.

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