Give More Spend Less

This year my family has decided not to exchange Christmas gifts. We unanimously agreed. Our parents are past their mid 80's and it puts extra stress on them to be a part of all the gifting.
For the first year ever, we will not have the stress of shopping and spending. We won't have the gift concerns of what to buy and for whom. We won't have to fight the crowds for something we don't need anyway and may never use. The retailers could suffer if a lot of families decided to do this, but it is the best solution for us. We won't spend money we don't have.
We will celebrate by just being together. Spending time together. We will each bring something to celebrate a delicious Christmas dinner and talk about what's going in our lives. We will give more in the way that truly matters, without all of the fluff of stuff. (as much as we all like it) Give More Spend Less. It will be interesting to see how it all goes since we are breaking our own tradition. We are not even going to exchange homemade gifts, nothing but ourselves. We will learn to experience the true meaning of Christmas. It's a novel idea and it's about time.

Thanksgiving

Today is a day I count my blessings and I'm thankful there are many to count. I'm alive and healthy, I have a wonderful family, two great kids and awesome friends. I have a job I enjoy and good people to work with. I'm very thankful my parents are here to share this Thanksgiving dinner.
Many of us have been going through some rough and challenging financial times. I know I have had to dig down deeper and deeper but it all seems to work out. We get through it. Sometimes I'm not sure just how its all going to work out, but it does. We have each other to lean on and to help us weather the storm.
Without the rough times I wouldn't have known what great friends and family I have, because I never would have had to ask for help. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It is humbling to have to ask and it has made me stronger. They have been there for me when I needed them the most and for that I am thankful.

Assassination

Assassination is such a strange word and so extreme a violent and calculated act of murder. I was living in Japan when President Kennedy was assassinated. We were awakened by a neighbor knocking on our door to tell us the shocking news the President had been shot. We waited to hear more and said prayers. We learned much later President Kennedy had died from a gunshot wound to the head. I will never forget that day. It was a gray day much like today in Dallas. Somber. Frightening. Sad. Why would someone do such a thing? I felt sick to my stomach. At a young age, I realized the world was not a safe place if someone would kill the President of our country.
The Japan Times printed a one page paper (in English) with what little they knew had happened. It was hard to be so far away from home and to know so little. Japanese television had one clip of the motorcade and repeated it over and over again. That was all we saw. There was a heavy cloud of uncertainty and lots of speculation about what happened, who did it, and what the future held for our country.
We returned to the States the following summer and learned how much news had been shown on television here. We missed it all. There was a big gap in our experience of what had happened by having just that one page to read. We had been isolated by living nearly half a globe away with the limited information of early technology. We learned most of America had been gathered around their TV sets for a week and that Americans joined together and mourned their loss as an entire country. No one had any credible answers then and sadly we still don't today, 45 years later.