Make the World a Better Place!

Charity does not simply mean giving money; that is just what people believe because it’s the easiest way to show it.  Charity has been defined as showing pure love, benevolent feeling and leniency in judging others.

This year, make the world a better place and extend yourself beyond writing a check.  I’m not talking about changing the world and I’m not talking about running for office.  I’m talking about doing one good thing, one more good thing than you did last year.  If you can’t think of a good deed you’ve done before, then you only have one thing to do to be better than before.

It can be as simple as shooting a smile to a stranger, shoveling the driveway of the old curmudgeon down the street or preparing a box of gifts and food for a needy family (the local churches have endless lists of families in need).

If you are a regular good deed doer, when you’re all deeded out, go do one more good deed than you normally would have.

If you have children, involve them!  Teach them to do these good things for others and show them by example; and don’t negate your good works by being a grouch the rest of the year.  And trust me about the small and simple things too; the smile of a stranger to those who find themselves having difficult times in their lives affects them more than you realize.

Spread cheer and turn the other cheek!  If you are not used to doing these things, get used to them.  Practice makes perfect, and being closer to perfection is something we all need.  The good Lord told us to be perfect and showed us the way.  He didn’t mean for us to get perfect immediately, He meant for us to do better each day and told us that His grace will make up for what we can not.

Jimi Hendrix — Innovator and Inventor

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~ Jimi Hendrix

I rant about hippies and the counter cutlure having messed up our country, but there are some things that came out of it all that I can’t deny that I love.

There are bands, there are musicians, there are songwriters and then there’s James Marshall Hendrix.  He was born Johnny Allen Hendrix and was known as Buster to friends and family.  After Jimi was discharged from the Army his father, Al Marshall Hendrix change Jimi’s name to James Marshall Hendrix, in honor of his deceased son and Jimi’s brother, Leon Marshall.

Jimi was dumped off on the porch by his mother when he was just a baby.  He grew up in the Yessler slums of Seattle with nothing but a head full of talent and dreams.  Hendrix had a passion for guitar so fierce, and it is reported that when he was five years old his caretaker told his father he better get Jimi a guitar or it would damage him psychologically; he wanted one that bad.  Jimi found an old, one stringed ukele in the garage that he used to compose several songs on and when he was fiftteen his father paid five dollars for Jimi’s first guitar, a used acoustic which he acquired from a friend.

When he was a teenager he got arrested for stealing cars.  The judge gave him the option of doing his time in the military in lieu of jail, so he made that choice then after boot camp got sent out with the 101st airborne.  He wasn’t the greatest of soldiers and was discharged after one year of service.  While in the military he was distracted by his dreams of playing guitar; there are reports that he would fall asleep on duty and play air guitar all the time and didn’t have much regard for military regulations.  It seems he was born for one thing and one thing only.

There are two guitarists that have passed through this world who took music to new levels with their individual and unique styles.  I’m not talking about someone merely coming up with something new and interesting; I’m talking about blowing the roof off, turning music inside out and showing everyone something they’ve never imagined before.  Those two people are Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson.

Robert Johnson was born in 1911.  He came up with a style of playing the blues that changed music.  Johnson used to follow around fellow blues guitarist Son House and attempt to emulate his style of playing, but was unable to.  Robert Johnson then disappeared for two years and when Son House saw him again he was a master of the guitar and had developed his own style of playing the blues.  Johnson’s story was that he had met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul in return for a mastery of the guitar.  Another account by Ike Zimmerman’s daughter says that he and Ike spent their time practicing and learning the guitar sitting out in the Hazelhurst cemetary on gravestones where it was quiet and nobody would disturb them.  Robert Johnson chronicled his story in the song, “Cross Road Blues” which has been covered by Eric Clapton, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers and others.

Jimi was born just four years after Robert Johnson died.  Jimi quickly became a master blues player but he was also a man who developed his own style.  I see him as having taken the reigns from Mr. Johnson in that he became the new innovator and boundary breaker although there was a new explosion of blues greats in addition to Jimi.  He was so innovative that he once said, “I’ve been immitated so well I’ve heard people copy my mistakes.”

About the blues Jimi said, “The blues is easy to play but hard to feel.”  He did his time on the Chitlin Circuit, down in New Orleans and made a name for himself among some of the greatest black artists of the time, including having backed up Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner and Wilson Pickett.

Soon Jimi Hendrix found himself in London with his new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience where he was backed up by guitarist Noel Redding on bass and a phenominal jazz sensation on drums named Mitch Mitchell.  Mitch used his jazz background and amazing chops to play off of and improvise upon Jimi’s psychedelic, experimental jams.  This created a whole new psychedelic rock fusion known as Acid Rock and took music to an entirely new place than it had ever been before.

Jimi Hendrix not only raised the level of what musicians could imagine and do at this time on stage and with their instruments, but he was an innovator in the studio, behind the controls and was one of the first to experiment with steriophonic and phasing techniques.  He used his imagination, talents and his psychedelic vision with great success on The Experience’s recorded music.  Later in his band’s career, Jimi took to spending countless hours in the studio and far less time out in front of an audience with his band, much to the chagrin of his band mates, and particularly Noel Redding, who felt somewhat stifled as an artist being stuck playing bass rhythms in this incredibly experimental band.

Jimi’s goal with his music was to change the world.  He saw music as a tool to greater things, he called it the safest high.  His wish after he died was that people would just keep playing his records.  Jimi once said, “I’m gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked.”

Jimi was a brilliant poet and it shows in the irony of this quote.  Not only is it funny but it has greater meaning if you think about the way he loved and viewed what he did through music.  Being completely naked meant not being shackled with prejudices and hangups that keep you from being free.

After The Experience broke up Jimi went on to play with a more fusion oriented jam band called A Band of Gypsies.  They were not received well by the critics, but Jimi didn’t care; he just wanted to make music, and make music they did.  Hendrix continued to push the proverbial envelope and break new ground with his Band of Gypsies.

James Marshall Hendrix died young at the age of 27, the same age that Robert Johnson died and incidentally the same ages that Jim Morrison of The Doors, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana all died.

Some people are put here for a very short time and do much with their talent.  Some do great things and some waste their talents.  I believe that Jimi Hendrix, although he lived a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll, brought us some beautiful music and beautiful messages through his music.  His life was not a life to emulate, but his music and messages are.

Rest in Peace, Jimi Hendrix — November 27, 1942 – September 18,  1970.

Some quotes attributed to Jimi Hendrix:

• “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
• “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
• “I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.”
• “I’m gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked.”
• “Music is a safe kind of high.”
• “It’s funny how most people love the dead, once you’re dead your made for life.”
• “I wish they’d had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would’ve been straightened out.”
• “Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.”
• “If my baby don’t love me no more, I know her sister will.”

Gay rights?

This whole gay rights thing has me perplexed.  There are so many facets to the issue that I’m going to probably ramble a bit, but I’ll try to keep my thoughts somewhat cohesive.  I have offended many gay people throughout  my life because I generally speak my mind.  I don’t beat around the bush or pretend I’m something that I’m not when I find myself surrounded by people I don’t agree with.

First off, the issue for me is not that gay people are bad or that I don’t like them.  That is not it at all.  And it pisses me off to no end that because I believe what I believe and I stand for what I stand for that I am called a bigot or that I am promoting hatred toward what I view as a deviant group in our society.

When I use a term like ‘deviant’, I offend.  But think it over a little bit and decide for yourself if deviant is not the correct term to describe homosexuality.  The definition is a departure from the accepted norm.  I’d say that being gay is definitely a departure from the accepted norm.

There is the issue of whether being gay is a choice or whether it’s something you’re born with.  I believe there are people who are born with same sex attraction tendencies.  So yes, I suppose I believe there are people who are born gay.  And there are certainly those who choose to be gay.

I have an addiction.  There is an issue of addiction that runs in my family.  I have certainly passed this addiction on to my children as well.  But because my children are born with tendencies toward addiction, does it make them, by default, alcoholics or junkies? And, just because someone is born with what seems to be a natural attraction to the same sex, does that make them gay?

I believe that we all have our own personal heavy burdens of responsibility given to us by our Creator.  And with those burdens of responsibility we have to make choices.  And that is what life is made of; choices.  We always have options and we always have choices to make.  But we have rules and guidelines that we must abide by in making these choices and in weighing our options.

The reason the gay community is so offended by those of us who disagree with their lifestyle is because we look to our standards and our standards tell us that this behavior is wrong, bad, deviant, unusual, queer, naughty, etc.  They don’t like to be told that they are doing something wrong.  Nobody likes to be told they’re wrong.

But it’s either right or it’s wrong.  It certainly is not the way nature intended for things to be.  And nature didn’t intend for me to be a drug addict or for my children to have those same addictive tendencies.

As members of this human family we all have responsibility to live up to our potential.  This life is a life of learning, a life of trials and a life of burdens.  Overcoming our burdens is what gives us strength, experience and knowledge, and we will carry these things with us into the next life if we are able to press on and achieve our potential.

Some are given far more than I could bear, like those who have the burden of same sex attraction.  I call it a burden because in society today it is a burden for them.  But I believe that it is their responsibility to manage that deviant desire and still do what is right, just as I have to manage my addictions and not escape into the comfort of drugs euphoria.

If there is a right and a wrong, and I believe that there is; and I believe that homosexuality is wrong, then there is a choice to be made for anyone struggling with same sex attraction.

But just as we all make wrong choices and give in to our carnal desires, these good people who are attracted to their same gender have to struggle with their feelings and passions; and today homosexuality is very commonplace in our society and it is easier than ever to be openly gay.  That’s not to say that being openly gay is easy, but it is definitely accepted today more than it was twenty years ago.

I have a drug addiction and have, in the past lived the drug user lifestyle.  But I don’t want to take drugs or have them made readily available to me because it is morally wrong.  Homosexuality is not the same as drug addiction, but it is a desire, a passion, something that consumes the person’s every thought at times and it becomes a lifestyle; and it is a moral issue.  And that’s where the conflict arises.  Who is the judge of morality?

So it becomes an issue of personal beliefs.  Many people compromise their beliefs to support gay rights because they want to be part of the crowd.  I can’t do that.  That doesn’t mean I don’t like gay people or that I want them to be punished or made to feel inferior in any way.  It just means that I think they made a wrong turn somewhere in their judgement just like I did to become a drug addict.

When it comes to giving them rights, they have all the rights I have and I have all the rights they have.  There should be  no issue of men marrying men and women marrying women.

The hippies screwed it all up!

One day the Viet Nam war was all over.

The soldiers began to come home and suddenly there was no more war movie on the news every night but there were some bad things going on when the vets came home.  Thanks to traitors like John F. Kerry and others, our soldiers were portrayed as baby killers, rapists and murderers; when they were just kids sent to do a duty for their country.

These poor soldiers got thrown into this new war; a much different war than anything an American GI had ever known before.  One out of four became addicted to heroine to ease the trauma and stress of this insane war.  Many of these soldiers returned to the states with their heads completely scrambled.

These young men, who were the future of America, were traumatized and confused as to where they fit in, what their role was in society, what power they now had and how they had to tame the beast that was unleashed while they were fighting after they came back to the way life used to be.  It didn’t work for them.  It couldn’t work for them.  It wasn’t like the other wars; where you would have your heroes and your treaties and your winners and losers.

The repercussions of this war were weaving their way through the fabric of our society and polarizing the nation.  For the first time in our history, our soldiers came home from battle and were looked upon as the enemy by their own country.  How could this have happened?  Who spun this mess to destroy these young men’s lives like this?

It was the counter culture and their rebellion; the hippies.

They wanted to do something good, reform society; but what they did was carve a rift through this great nation and put youth against authority, government against academia and just like a cracked windshield, it spread out of control and in all directions, infecting people’s understanding of politics, ethics, and even religion.

By the time anyone was able to see what was happening, the damage had been done and this great country was beyond repair.  The hippie counter culture cancer had begun to decay our nation.  Their ideology was based on selfish principles, going against what has worked for so many years, causing strife and upheaval in people’s lives.  They called it freedom.  What it was in reality was bondage; bondage according to their dictates, their philosophies, influenced by mind altering drugs and so-called free love expression.

They brought us STDs and a sharp rise in illegitimate births under the umbrella of “free love”.  They started the sexual revolution, which was nothing more than a proactive petition for irresponsible behavior free of consequences.  The consequences were not immediate, but they came, and they have damaged our precious nation and its wholesome family values.  Lost innocence was the result as these irresponsible youths pushed and clamored for attention from the media; and they got it.  And when they got it they forced their opinions and ideas on the rest of us whether we wanted to partake in it or not.  So we were fed their propaganda through any medium they could deliver to us.

They disguised their assault on America’s values as art and free speech.  They did it with sensationalism, bumper stickers, sound bytes and protest chants.  It was all about repetition and forcefully sinking their message into the minds of those who didn’t want to hear it.  Symbols of their rebellious opposition to our former patriotism started showing up everywhere and become accepted as American culture.  The hippies became fashionable.  They used art as a way of spreading their doctrine.  They assaulted the senses with photography, paintings, music, movies, magazines, signs, gatherings; anything they could do to get the masses to pay attention, just enough attention so that their poison could be introduced into the minds of the American people.

They wanted to convert everyone to their way of believing, but they were such hypocrites in their message of free thinking and individuality.  These freaks created their own religion and worked just as hard as any cult to convert the masses to their way of thinking.  And it continued to spread as the changing of the guard takes place from generation to generation, these unbound and revolutionary ideologues took over our curriculum, they homogenized things like, patriotism, failure and achievement and began to inject sexuality into every aspect of our culture and sex education into our schools in tandem with the sexual revolution.

This is what happened to America.  They called it progressive, but what it really was, was taking the innocence from our children far too early in their lives and putting the focus of boy-girl relationships on sex rather than innocent puppy-love that used to be cute for kids to experience and awkwardly but safely enjoy.

Academia has been infected by the ideologues as they inject small bits at a time of their dogma into the regular main stream.  A little here, a little there, until school principals are handing out condoms, Christmas is a bad word and the mere mention of discipline could result in the expulsion of a teacher.  All the while kids are being taught how to properly pleasure themselves with the introduction of safe sex education, free of responsibility and free of consequence.

No longer is it OK to teach children that they have to draw a line at some point to protect themselves.  Now they’re taught to toe that line and experiment to see what comes of their exploration.

Thanks to the counter culture revolution we have a major increase in unwed pregnancies, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the breakdown of the traditional family.  First the poison is introduced, then it is tolerated, then it is accepted, and eventually it is embraced as a regular part of life.

The women’s liberation movement was a big part of that counter culture revolution too; Gloria Steinem and her feminist sisterhood.  She introduced us to the title of Ms. in addition to Mr. and Mrs.  While well meaning, she didn’t have her eye on the right mark and she lacked the proper vision and wisdom to speak for women of America.  But, her message was enticing to many and they embraced the tenets of the Women’s Liberation Movement and they worked hard to equal themselves to men.

Change may have been necessary, but when it came, it was loaded with pit falls.  The Women’s Liberation Movement exacerbated the issue of women against men and began to draw lines and create new rules and issues by which these disenfranchised women could identify them selves.  The result of all of this so-called enlightenment was a rapid increase in divorce, latch-key kids came from this movement and step families became an accepted norm.

Previous to this our country had been built on the solid foundation of the family bond.  There is something indestructible about a family united with purpose.  There is wisdom in the years of the elderly passed down to the younger generations, there is strength in the bond of a committed family, there is power to create, to heal, to build up and to fortify when families are bound together.  United we stand.  Divided we fall.  It is so true.  And the interjection of these counter culture values began to erode the core of what made America great; the family.

And once the family structure begins to unravel, society as a whole is in danger of collapse.  It is so simple to see that the family is the critical element to holding this great nation together, but something has infected our society and it is so cancerous and destructive now that we now we find ourselves in the midst of redefining the marriage covenant being between a man and a woman to being genderless.  How far have we slipped from our core?  How far have we come as a society to go from the grit and strength of a solid, tried and true, safe family structure to men marrying men being a constitutional issue?

The hippies rebelled against rules and regulations that were designed not to confine or imprison, but to help balance and manage our freedoms, to elicit individual responsibility.  They disregarded their responsibilities for pleasure and introduced the consequences of their actions into the mainstream of our lives, and as they cascaded into our homes through every media outlet we all became familiar and comfortable with them.

They turned everything upside down and then as these hippie rebels aged and matured, they carried their philosophies into our governments, our schools and institutions and now this nation is infected with that cancerous hippie ideology and people can’t even see where we once were and where we are headed.

Put it in your pocket!

Matt Foley: Alright, how’s everybody? Good! Good! Good! Now, as your father probably told you, my name is Matt Foley, and I am a Motivational Speaker! Now, let’s get started by me giving you a little bit of a scenario of what my life is all about! First off, I am 35 years old.. I am divorced.. and I live in a van down by the river! Now, you kids are probably saying to yourself, “Now, I’m gonna go out, and I’m gonna get the world by the tail, and wrap it around and put it in my pocket!!” Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re probably gonna find out, as you go out there, that you’re not gonna amount to Jack Squat!!” You’re gonna end up eating a steady diet of government cheese, and living in a van down by the river! Now, young man, what do you want to do with your life?

Brian: I.. actually, Matt.. I kinda wanna be a writer..

Matt Foley: We-e-e-elll.. la-de-freakin’-da! We’ve got ourselves a writer here! Hey, Dad, I can’t see real good…is that Bill Shakespeare over there?

This is about the response I got from some of my most trusted friends when I told them I wanted to be a writer, publish a book and create a screenplay based on my life.  I’m here to tell you and old Matt Foley that those naysayers are full of it!

I’ve done a lot in my life, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’ve surprised people with things I’ve set my mind to.  If a movie has been made and a book has been published then I can surely do it and so can you or anyone else.

The truth is that I’m 43, I am divorced, I have six kids, I’m unemployed and I live in a corner bedroom at my mother’s house.  That’s actually true, but it is temporary.  I have recently been laid off from a six figure executive position and lost all of my savings, my car and got a DUI after allowing all of this downturn to overcome me.  Now I am digging myself out of this hole and moving myself back into the fast lane and into first place in my life.

So far, what have I learned through this process?  I have learned that there are as many different opinions as there are stars in the sky, and the only opinions that are correct are the ones I believe.

My successes and my failures are out there for me to choose and make come true.  They are both waiting for me; as in nature, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so in life there is opposition in all things.  For me to choose failure would mean there is a success that was missed.  For me to choose success means there was a failure missed.

So, my failures and my successes already exist, they are just waiting for me to realize one or the other.  And something incredibly important to remember in all of this is; if I have any sort of failure, my success is still out there for me to achieve, so quitting is never an option.

Now go out, get the world by the tail, and wrap it around and put it in your pocket!

The Dinosaurs

So I got a head full of dinosaur information not long ago and it got me to thinking. I always wondered, as everyone surely wonders; what’s the deal with the dinosaurs?

I should probably state before I get too far out of the gate here that I believe what the bible says about the flood, creation (although there’s no way it was seven twenty four hour days), the resurrection, etc. There are some bible stories that may have been described in such a way as to cause the reader to believe something a little bit too outrageous to be true. I don’t know, it’s just a thought; like Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt. All we know is that they were warned not to look back, and then we read that his wife “looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt”.

The Cecil B. Demille version shows her literally becoming salt before Lot’s eyes as she turns to watch the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I may be called a blasphemer by the fundamentalists, but I don’t believe it was that cut and dried; bing, bang, bong, you’re a pillar of salt now.

I don’t know what the whole “becoming a pillar of salt” really means; whether she actually became salt, or if she went back to grab something she forgot because the “angels” rushed them out of their house and was consumed by some fiery shrapnel, or what. Whatever it means, Lot’s wife went against the Word and paid the price; and we get the lesson from it.

So, what do this rant about confusing bible stories and dinosaurs have to do with each other? Well, the first part of Genesis is given to us by Moses. It was given to him by revelation. We don’t have any record of what happened except for what he saw in vision. And what I’m trying to say is that a lot happened during those first thousand or so years, and it was all synopsisized (yea, I made that word up) into the first fifteen or twenty chapters of the bible by our pal Moses. So some of it might not come across as literal as what actually happened.

I’m a creationist. The evolutionists have good theories, I don’t discount everything they say; that would be stupid. They say that the earth, at one time was organized as a single land mass and that the tectonic plates split up and gave us our modern day topography. They also say that the “Bering land bridge” helped emigrate people from Asia to North America long ago. Science needs to publish theories that make them feel confident and doctoral; so today we are taught evolution, land bridges and tectonic plate shifts.

I’m here to say that we have the actual truth written out in that simple little book called the bible. It’s not all there, not by a long shot, but enough is there. And if science would have the guts to merge with the historical accounts in the bible, I would bet that a lot of unanswered questions would be resolved.

Here’s the history of the world according to me. After the earth was created, and some time before Adam and Eve were created, the continents were arranged as we know them today. Adam and Eve were created in North America and yadda, yadda, yadda; Noah is told to build the arc.

So Noah is faced with the issue of bringing all sorts of animals into the arc; but I don’t believe for one moment that he was able to save them all. And this brings us to the issue of the dinosaurs.

The bible tells us that there were giants on the earth in those days. So Noah is building an arc in North America where all the dinosaurs live, but he has to leave them behind.

The flood comes, the dinosaurs die, Noah and pals float off to Asia and start again in the Eastern Hemisphere. Hence, we have dinosaur fossils all over North America and really no where else.

And it’s really that simple. The flood told in the bible actually happened, which killed the dinosaurs and all mankind, and sent Noah far east to start the world all over again in a new land.

I find it fascinating that as science and archaeology make advances, they verify many of our age old bible stories. It’s unfortunate however, that the scientific community at large still dismisses the bible as a book of fables.

When the going gets tough, the tough get thankful

I have found that one of the greatest tools in times of trouble, tribulation, suffering, depression, angst, choose your favorite word of adversity; the most immediate and effective tool to help take the edge off is gratitude.  It won’t solve your problems but it will ease your mind for a moment as you consider all you have been blessed with.

I know that sometimes it’s hard to recognize or admit to ourselves that there’s much to be grateful for, but we all have more to be grateful for than we can imagine.  Think of all of the things we take for granted; if they were gone we sure would recognize them!

The next time you’re in the dumps and can’t think of a reason to smile, make a list, even a mental list of ten or twenty things you are grateful for.  It will ease your burden and help lighten your load so you can continue on and take a few more difficult steps through the darkness.  You’ll keep moving forward until you get your problems solved and can look back with wisdom and thankfulness.

The Power of Love

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
~ Jimi Hendrix

A man filled with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race
~ Joseph Smith

These quotes are from two men who lived completely different lives, but who learned some of the same lessons.  The purpose of this blog is to share my views, my perspectives on life and my philosophies to hopefully give a little bit of what I have learned from the veritable dichotomy that is my life.

Love is a powerful thing, probably the most powerful force in the universe.  Where does it come from?  Do we create it or does it just exist?  How do we obtain it?  What is true love?

I don’t know for sure the answer to these questions, but I do know what I believe.  I think love exists and that it is up to us to find it, to tap into the fountain from where all love flows.  Although love is intangible, it can be felt and it can be experienced; but it is deeply personal and can not be handed over from one person to the next.  The closest means we have of transferring love from one to another is by showing this love to other people through kindness and service and working to fill those who have room to be filled.

This holiday season is about love, loving, giving love and receiving love; all of those.  We can not truly love if we are not willing to both give and receive love.  Often times the scales are tipped in the favor of others and it may seem that we have a deficit in our lives.  But we must always remember, that as we continue to give, we carve holding places within ourselves to receive when the time is right; and when the time is right, we will receive.  Patience is borne of love and love is borne of patience.  They go hand in hand.

To truly receive, we must truly give.  To have it any other way is merely taking.

Merry Christmas!