Tuesday, December 9th

I got to practice my speech a bit today.... good thing as I had to present it tonight at my Toastmasters meeting. Late this afternoon I went to visit Mom (about 30 minute drive north of here), then when I left there just after 7, I drove to my Toastmasters meeting (approximately half way between Mom's and home), then after the meeting I talked to Pat for quite some time, out in the parking lot, then drove home on icy roads. I drove with the truck in 4 wheel drive high range after sliding around a bit when I first started out. This is much safer than driving in 2 wheel drive, especially with no weight in the back of the truck.

The speech I gave went over very well, everyone seemed to be listening very intently and laughed at the appropriate places. The speech project I did tonight was Make Them Laugh, from the advanced manual The Entertaining Speaker. It was an 8 to 10 minute speech, and was titled Feliz Navidad. I was told one week ago tonight that I was on the schedule to give a speech tonight. For several days I couldn't make up my mind which manual to work out of, or which project to use... and didn't have a clue what to write the speech on. Saturday night I was up until 3am and had listened to Christmas music and posted Feliz Navidad to my blog. As I crawled into bed that song kept running through my head and I wished it would stop so I could think about my speech as I started to again read through the possible projects to do. Then it came to me. I jumped out of bed and ran for a notebook & pen, then wrote until 5:35am before I decided to leave the rest for the next day, turned out the light and went to sleep. Sunday I stayed home from church and put the finishing touches to it, then typed it up onto the computer. As I practiced it, right up until 'show time', I kept making little changes. When you do a speech, you can come close, but just never quite use the same words more than once. Each time you practice, then when you perform it, some words will be a bit different, some different words will come out of your mouth... and that's okay.

When you speak at Toastmasters, you are timed, and lights are turned on to tell you where you are. I had the lights come on as follows tonight: green at 8 minutes, yellow at 9, and red at 10 minutes... this way I know when to end my speech. I ran out of time with about 3 more paragraphs to go, which I figured I would though I like to have it there in case I talk faster than when practicing. When I see the yellow light I know it's time to bring it to an end.

This is the speech I gave, without the 'extra' paragraphs:

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad, Prospero Ano y Felizidad

Merry Christmas, Happy & Prosperous Year

Madame Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmasters

As a child, as I am sure most children do, I LOVED Christmas! It was a magical time of year with gifts under the tree, candy canes to eat, & that special dinner with Aunt Mable & Granny.

Us kids were always allowed to each open one gift on Christmas Eve. I guess it helped stop us from driving Mom & Dad crazy. Yet, the next morning they drove us kids crazy!

364 mornings out of the year we had to be called & called to get out of bed… then on this one day each year, we were up before our parents. We didn’t have to be called, not even once! Did we get rewarded for this? Did we get to open our presents? Noooo! We had to wait!!

When they finally did get up, Mom went to work in the kitchen while Dad was out feeding & milking the cows.

(Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Tick Tock)

When all the chores are done, Dad returns to the house and Mom serves him his breakfast… a big bowl of steaming hot Porridge (Red River), of course, with milk from our cows, likely from the previous mornings milking.

Tick Tock, Tick… It always seemed like Dad ate a LOT slower on Christmas morning than he did on any other day of the year, though he always swore he ate the same speed. He must have because Jesse James Price did not lie to his children. Dad didn’t even let us kids believe in Santa Claus because that would, to him, be the same as lying to us…. And to this day, Mom still writes “Love From Santa” on some of our gifts.

When the porridge was eaten & the table cleared, we at long last got to rip into our gifts!!

I don’t recall now what my presents were all those years ago, but something I do recall is one of the things that gave us pleasure on those Christmas mornings; Giving Dad his gifts. We always tried to fool him, making him guess what it was. He’d take the present in those big hands of his, he’d feel it, then tell us exactly what was inside! We were always amazed at how he could do that! The one I remember best was “25 feet of ¾ inch rope”. … Kids!

As the years passed, unfortunately so did my love of Christmas! Some unhappy experiences on Christmas Days, & the end of my marriage in December 1976 likely contributed to it, but mostly it was feeling lost & alone at that “jolly” time of the year, when everything is about families and togetherness. Oh, I always went “home” for Christmas day, to Mom, Dad, and any siblings that made it home with their spouses and children… yet I was always alone. I never seemed to fit in. I could really relate to Scrooge at that time of year. I could also really relate to stress, depression, and bad moods…. & to how Santa must have felt the year he had his “melt down”:

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.
Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.
When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.
Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards broke, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.
Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.
Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

-- And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

Eventually, in 1991, I found my way to the Okanagan Centre for Positive Living, now called the Okanagan Centre for Spiritual Living. Rev. Lloyd was the minister at that time, and he loves Christmas. I forget now the things he said to me, but I know we talked about Christmas and my dislike of the whole season… & I know that he started me down a path that, since then, has led me to a much better sense of self worth, to an understanding of who & what I am, to happiness and joy within my self… nearly every day! That path has also led me back to enjoying Christmas again… mostly.

Christmas, though, with all its gifts and its stories of Santa and his Elves is for the children in our lives. Children now days are all so “techie” it seems, so internet literate, so computer savvy. Even little children like my great niece Kennedy access the knowledge on the internet, and of course, they email.

Recently, as cute little Kennedy climbed onto Santa's lap, Santa asked the usual question, "And what would you like for Christmas?"
She stared at him open mouthed and horrified for a minute, then gasped: "Didn't you get my E-mail?"

Feliz Navidad, Prospero Ano y Felizidad

(I even wore what was my Dad's sweatshirt, and now is mine. It's red and has the Red River Cereal logo on it).