Happy end of year Holiday

Pre - Christmas edition

I’ve just realised that many of you will be taking a month off, starting some time during December - and  wow! it is December already. So here are some thoughts to take with you.

Yesterday someone asked me, on the phone, what I’d be doing for Christmas day. I told her that, with all my children and grandchildren in other Australian States, Christmas day is pretty much a non-event for me.

She kept asking, what would I do, wouldn’t I do this or that. I told her that I prefer not to think about it too much, because it’s a day for families – and since I can’t have a ‘family Christmas’, it makes me too sad to dwell on it.

She still dwelt on it.....  Until I said ‘You’re not listening to me are you?’ She’d been so busy with her version of what I should do, how I should feel, that she’d entirely ignored my plea not to have to think about what I was missing, so I wouldn’t feel too sad.

So my reminder for you is to ----    Just Listen    -----   Stop trying to convince others to your way of thinking, or being  -  and just listen. You’ll be surprised how good a friend you’ll become.

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I couldn’t make up my mind which poem to send you to tide you over until I send out another newsletter. One that speaks of Christmas - Hanukka - or whatever religious or secular event you may celebrate at this time. Or one that speaks of Love.

So I’ve sent you both.   Take your pick.

See you in the New Year  -  and don’t forget to give a book to someone who needs it.

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LOVE

Don’t break

Don’t kill

Don’t beat down

Love warms to love

a gentle touch heals

and receives back gentleness and love

and forever afters.

© Beryl Shaw July  1997

                CHRISTMAS LOVE

                 If you don’t love for the rest of the year

                   but only at Christmas

It’s not love

Just a reflection of the love you see around you

Perhaps an echo of your past.

If you’re not lonely, except at Christmas

It’s not loneliness

Just a remembrance of things already gone

And envy of others you see together.

So if you can see

What is

If you can live

What may be

If you can borrow

from your sorrow

those long forgotten pangs

Pangs of love and longing

and seek the person you once were

Give to someone

who hasn’t even that remembrance

You’ll love

Again

At Christmas.

© Beryl Shaw 7/12/2000

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HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Much love

See you in January

Beryl