Merry Christmas and Church last night

Phil and I went to church last night like we always do on Christmas Eve. We go late. We love the candles and the bells at midnight. We went to the First Christian Church of Edmond. We have gone there for every Christmas eve since moving to Edmond. It's a nice church, big and full of light...well until the lights go down...then it's really dark.

I feel bad because we do not know anyone. I said Merry Christmas to the ladies next to us but I wanted to say more (not during the service mind you, but before it got started.) I hate not feeling connected. Even when it was over, I wanted to rejoice "Merry Christmas" to everyone in sight but I consciencely restrained myself. (Yes, I choice I made and didn't have to go that way. Maybe I'm just shy. I can see those who know me, right now rolling their eyes to the ceiling at that thought.)

The service was very nice; a good mixture of gospel and song. One thing that bothered me though is this. One of the talkers...who could be a minister but I'm not sure...talked about an experience he had at Walmart. He apparently came upon a little boy who was wanting to buy a doll. His aunt told him he didn't have enough money for it. She conveniently slipped away down the aisle so this man was alone with the boy in the aisle. He asked the boy about the doll; why did he want to buy it. The boy explained he wanted to get his for sister who was in heaven and his mother was going to be joining her soon. The man asked the little boy to recount his money and while he helped him with this, he slipped in some extra money. The boy, to his delight, determined he did indeed had enough money for the doll and also for a white rose for his mother. Off the boy went with the aunt.

Later, the man discovered a report on the news that a woman and her little daughter were victims of a drunk driver. The little girl died on the scene and the mother was in a coma...her prognosis not very good. Days later he read that she did die. He went to the funeral home and found the mother...a doll and a white rose in the her casket with her.

It's a nice story to know that his minister was able to help this little boy with his grief and for the man to see a true meaning of Christmas. What bothers me is that this didn't happen to the minister...it happened to someone else. It might be petty but to personalize the story, to me, seems wrong. It's almost a form of plagiarism.

Last year he did this too; a story where all the people in line at Walmart handed up money to a single mom, who at the checkout didn't have enough. This too didn't happen in Edmond. I read it on the Internet.

I know what the point of the story is. I just think he should give some kind of disclaimer that this happened somewhere else and that the story had been relied to him from a different source.

Gawd, I hope this doesn't make me a scrooge.

Aw..Religion and Sins

I will be the first to admit, what I know about the Bible and religion you could stick in your bellybutton and still have room for your thumb.

I found a non-fiction book yesterday called...Understanding Your Man in the Mirror...something like that. It was a self help book for wives wishing to understand their husbands better. This book is heavy on religion. It says that all men (unless they are not heterosexual) will lust for woman who are not their wives and this is a sin. They need to pray to God to forgive them and then give them the strength to stop this activity. This is temptation. When I say lust, I don't mean stalkers who hide in the bushes with their extermities hanging out while they watch sunbathing women in meagerly clad outer wear. (This I know is wrong.) But the book says men who look at their waitress and have fleeting thoughts of a lapdance...this kind of lust. It's a sin!

I was in the lunchroom at work while I read this and told "P" about my findings. She totally agreed. This is a sin.

We got into a discussion about amendments..I mean commandments and what is needed to get to Heaven. I asked her why God gives us the ability to have desires like having fleeting thoughts of being (in the Biblical sense) with others who are not your spouse. She says this is the devil and God has given us Free Will to make the right choices.

For a man to look at a woman and think, deep in the back of his mind, "gee I wonder how she'd be in bed?"....a rather simple unhurtful fleeting thought is not a sin. Sorry, but even in my ignorant state I can't believe God would do that. If no one gets hurt, where's the offense?

My God wouldn't make life that hard.

More on this soon.

Friends, Gifts and Business

Okay, here's the scoop. I became friends w/ my co-worker Dee when I started working here in 1999. I began in February so by the time Christmas rolled around, we had developed a friendship. We exchanged birthday and Christmas gifts..like friends do. Then, a couple years later, Dee became my boss. This didn't change our gift exchanging traditions. A couple more years later, Dee became everyone's boss.

Now I give to her and she gives to me what she gives to everyone. For my birthday, I got a card. Not a special card; not a gift. Just a run-of-the-mill, from a box, not even from the card stand. For Christmas she handed out little tins of chocolate, cute but not like it used to be. It's not that I want a gift; that's not the issue! But she's my immediate supervisor (she only manages two employee directly but she manages all the managers who manage everyone else.) I can understand her thinking that she doesn't want to show favoritism but we were friends first and it hurts to think I'm nothing more to her than a subordinate.

The VP of the department gave the receptionist a gift for her birthday. I can understand him giving it to her, she does a lot to keep the phones answered. I understand that. Wouldn't others here understand if Dee did something special for me? I seriously doubt anyone would complain that she was showing favoritism. We were friends first, I work directly under her. It makes sense.

My fellow employee, who is also directly managed by Dee, asked me if I wanted to go in with her on something for Dee for Christmas. I told her I'm really ambivalent about it; should I continue to give her gifts? I'm giving something to everyone. I like to do this but I don't think I will be giving Dee anything better than what everyone else is getting.

I know in the whole scheme of things, this is really petty. It's just what's going through my mind.

Holiday Newsletter

Each year we have send out, to family and friends, our Holiday Newsletter from Oklahoma. Phil has always confessed he didn't like doing it; that he would rather send cards. Cards are good too if you have the time to sit down and write them out. We have over 70 to prepare to mail out. As an alternative, I started writing our year long News from the Okies.

Last year, I let Scruffy write it. It was good...a few mistakes could be found but what do you want from a dog? Scruffy talked about her advertures when she was "home alone" each day. Some days she slept on the sofa, sometimes in her basket; sometimes, when she really wanted to mix things up a bit, she'd sleep in the sun under the sky light in the master bath. In the letter she'd tell all that; how what Phil and I were doing would affect her. It was cute.

Yesterday, I told Phil that Scruffy needed to get going on this year's letter. Phil's response surprised me. "We don't do anything worth mentioning!" he declared. "Nobody should care."

My first response to this was, "Well, how does that make you feel? Do you think we should be doing exciting stuff?"

He didn't have an answer.

"Every day we can open our eyes and see the sun and hop in our cars to go to work is something worth mentioning. If we can breath, we can celebrate."

And that's how I feel.