"One Good Year"

In December 2005 I got the CD My Hand, My Heart by Russell Crowe and his group TOFOG. On the morning of January 1, 2006, I got in my car to go to work at the bookstore. When I turned on the car stereo, I heard the first words to the song “One Good Year”:

“It’s New Year’s Day, just like the day before…”

It was pure coincidence that this song was the first I heard in 2006. It took my breath away for a moment. And since 2006 turned out to be a pretty good year, it’s become my tradition (perhaps even my superstition) that “One Good Year” is the first song I listen to each year. Yesterday marked the fifth year in a row that I’ve done this.

Wishing everyone One Good Year and many more to follow!

Russell Crowe - One Good Year

The Story of Our Christmas Candle

My mother was a school teacher and when I was about nine years old, the principal at Mom's school gave her and each of the other teachers a beautiful artificial candle. It was about two feet high and made from multicolored foil, green foil for the body with orange, yellow, and red foils creating the flame. There was also decoration around the bottom. It was really gorgeous. We put it on a table in the dining room, and kept it there as a decoration. After Christmas, we carefully packed it away. For the next four Christmases, we got it out and put it on the table when we decorated for the holidays. After five years, it was starting to look a little beat up. So when we took the decorations down, my mother said to throw the Christmas candle in the trash. My brother wanted to open it and see what was inside. My mother said it was probably only a cardboard tube. My brother ripped open the paper.

Inside were four Tupperware cups with lids, stacked one on top of the other. Our beautiful Christmas candle, which we had admired and cherished for five years, was merely the wrapping for the present. When we told him what happened, my father laughed, but not as loud or as long as my mother's principal did when she told him the story.

"You thought all I gave you was a foil candle?" he said.

There's a moral in this story somewhere.

I posted this on a message board and someone commented, “Your candle story is beautiful. You didn't ask if there was anything else to your gift. You displayed it proudly for 5 years not knowing the real gift was inside.”

I like that interpretation. I was worried that our family is very shallow. Or just not too bright.