There's Gold in Them Thar Buckets

(AP 2008 photo)

A Christmas surprise in a Salvation Army bucket:

An anonymous donor dropped a rare gold coin into a red kettle operated by the Napa Salvation Army on Saturday.

Volunteers discovered the 1-ounce South African Krugerrand gold coin while counting donations after a day of bell ringing at Napa’s Bel Aire Plaza, Larry Carmichael, a corps officer of the Salvation Army of Napa, told the Chronicle on Sunday.

“This is not a coin you carry in your pocket to toss anywhere,” Carmichael said. “Whoever had it was intentional about where they were donating it.”

...The organization’s annual red kettle donation campaign, which started at the Oakland Ferry Landing in 1891, collects millions of dollars nationally to fund its holiday meals program. In Napa, donations also fund a culinary arts training program, music classes for children and housing grants for more than 100 local families.

What I like about this story is that the donor wanted anonymity (and didn't even want to document the donation for the IRS!). Yes, he or she could have private, practical reasons, but I like to think that this was the motivation:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.----Matthew 6:1-4

The spot price of gold is about $2,630 per ounce, and the value of a 1-oz. Krugerrand tracks spot gold closely.

Merry Christmas!

Songs of the Season

(Reprised):

In the late 1990's my former employer could draw on a talent pool of more than 200 financial professionals to put together a decent holiday choir. The grainy video (VHS tape) and monaural audio won't attract any hits today, but Christmas is a time of nostalgic sentimentality...



Note: here are parts Two, and Three.

Part Four is below:



Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow...

But the fates do not allow. As this year has reminded us, Our time together is fleeting, gone in the wink of an eye. Like the ghostly watchers in Grover's Corners, we have an eternity to mull the regrets of moments unappreciated until too late.

The Cards Are Mailed

We finished signing and addressing the Christmas cards and will drop them off at the Post Office this afternoon. Most of the addressees will receive them after Christmas, but at least the postmark will verify that we got them out before Wednesday.

I still have some business forms to be filed with California before year end and some donations to be reviewed (we're itemizing in 2024), but the holiday to-do list is nearly checked off and, at the risk of jinxing it, the signs point to a Happy Holiday week.

Much More Than Dates

Back in the '50's perishable Christmas gifts were rare. Air shipments were not available to the hoi polloi, and refrigeration was prohibitively expensive. When California relatives did send food to our Hawaiian household, it was usually in the form of dried dates, which I did enjoy.

In recent years most of the holiday food shipments (meats, cheeses, fresh fruits) we've received require refrigeration. This year my brother, who lives in Orange County, mailed us a package of California dried fruits. I'll savor them with my morning coffee, thinking of the dates I delighted in a lifetime ago.

An Oldie and Goodie

(Album cover from Wikipedia)

San Francisco's most-streamed Christmas tune is a 1958 number:

This year, a new star has risen to the top of San Francisco’s holiday music charts.

Well, not exactly new. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” the famed rockabilly tune sung by a then-13-year-old Brenda Lee, was recorded 66 years ago. Since then, Lee’s song has enjoyed a slow and steady climb up the charts, and this time around even beaten Mariah Carey’s fabled “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to become the most-streamed holiday song in San Francisco heading into December, and the city’s 10th most-streamed track overall.

Below is 80-year-old Brenda Lee reprising her Eisenhower-era hit.

Gaudete Sunday

Today the Advent candle is rosy pink:

The third Sunday of Advent in the Roman Catholic calendar of the church year. The term is derived from the Latin opening words of the introit antiphon, “Rejoice (Gaudete) in the Lord always.” The theme of the day expresses the joy of anticipation at the approach of the Christmas celebration. This theme reflects a lightening of the tone of the traditional Advent observance. It was appropriate for the celebrant of the Mass to wear rose-colored vestments on this day instead of the deeper violet vestments that were typically used in Advent. This Sunday was also known as “Rose Sunday.” This custom is not required in the Episcopal Church, but it is observed by some parishes with a traditional Anglo-catholic piety. This custom is reflected by the practice of including a pink or rose-colored candle among the four candles of an Advent wreath.

The beauty of the rose candle on Gaudete ("rejoice") Sunday shines in a darkened world, foreshadowing the Light to come.

That Old Time Religion

Children's Christmas pageants are now done
before Christmas instead of January 6th

Christmas was simpler when I was a child in the '50's. The tree, lights, and presents were all put up or purchased in the two weeks before Christmas. On Christmas morning I opened maybe three gifts and was lucky if they weren't all clothes. If I did get a toy, book, or game, it was the focus of my attention for the next several months.

December 25th marked the start of Christmas, not its end like today. The tree stayed up through the 12th day, and the 13th was January 6th, Epiphany, the next season on the Church calendar. Speaking of church, there were many services to attend; on December 24th there was afternoon worship for kids and a midnight mass with the adults dressed in finery. The Christmas Day morning service fulfilled our church obligations, then we were off to various gatherings on both sides of the family.

I miss the traditional Christmas.

The 12 days of Christmas run from Dec. 25 through Jan. 5, with that last evening called Twelfth Night—the evening before Epiphany. It’s a time for skits, with a Lord of Misrule appointed to lead the festivities: an evening of “cakes and ale,” as Shakespeare has the drunken Sir Toby proclaim in his own “Twelfth Night” play.

Advent—from the fourth Sunday before Christmas to Christmas Eve—is a penitential season: a lean time for reflection and confession to prepare believers for the immensity of the birth in Bethlehem. But over the past 150 or so years, Christmas has eaten up Advent, gobbled it down with turkey giblets, and hammered it flat with clove-studded hams. The celebrations have reached so far up the calendar that Christmas arrives as an exhausting end of the season rather than its penitentially anticipated beginning. The partridge in a pear tree is supposed to arrive Christmas Day, not Dec. 14.

The actual Christmas season moves from Christmas to the Feast of St. Stephen on Dec. 26. And then the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the children slaughtered by King Herod. Then the Feast of the Holy Family, then Hogmanay, the Feast of St. Sylvester. The Solemnity of Mary, the Feast of the Holy Name, and all the rest.

I also want to reclaim January 6th from political partisanship as the Feast of the Epiphany, but that's another discussion.

Keeping Hydrated

Lately I've been getting Christmas presents that are more along the lines of what's good for me--e.g., books on preventing dementia and diabetes--as opposed to stuff that I might enjoy.

This year's take-better-care-of-yourself gift was a one-gallon water bottle. The doctor has cautioned that, given a family history of kidney disease, I should drink more water, which I have been doing.

But one gallon? That's a lot of guzzling, not to mention the burdens of lugging around a 8.34-lb. water bottle and making sure I'm not far from a restroom.

On day one I consumed half a gallon plus one cup of coffee. Baby steps, or in this case baby sips.

Merry Christmas!

Joseph Stella, Newark Museum of Art

A reading from the Gospel of Luke:

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Songs of the Season

(Reprised):

In the late 1990's my former employer could draw on a talent pool of more than 200 financial professionals to put together a decent holiday choir. The grainy video (VHS tape) and monaural audio won't attract any hits today, but Christmas is a time of nostalgic sentimentality...



Note: here are parts Two, and Three.

Part Four is below:



Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow...

But the fates do not allow. As this year has reminded us, Our time together is fleeting, gone in the wink of an eye. Like the ghostly watchers in Grover's Corners, we have an eternity to mull the regrets of moments unappreciated until too late.

Christmas Shopping: A Benign Perspective

Gift-giving may be good, but I don't miss being
"Secret Santa" at the office Christmas party. (hrleader)

Economics can explain much of human behavior, but UC-Berkeley psychology professor Alison Gopnik says it doesn't explain altruism. (There's a school of thought that posits altruistic behavior is built into our genes; in my view that "science" isn't useful because it's not predictive, but that's another discussion.) [bold added]

the foundational idea behind economic and political theory, and much moral psychology and philosophy too, is the social contract. On this view, I am an individual agent with goals I want to achieve and resources I can use to achieve them. So are you. By agreeing to swap some of our resources we can both do better than we would on our own. Markets and democracies, the great inventions of the Enlightenment, help to scale up those social contracts to include millions of people at once.

Caregiving, on the other hand, is at the heart of many different religious traditions. Agape and caritas, the Greek and Latin terms for unconditional love, are central to the Christian tradition, as chesed or loving-kindness is in Judaism...

Understanding caregiving better might help us to explain gift-giving; Christmas shopping might be a spiritual practice as much as an economic transaction. Caregiving doesn’t fit the social-contract picture. It’s profoundly and intrinsically altruistic. When I take care of my children or my aging parents I don’t expect anything in return. Even professional caregivers like child-care workers and home-health aides will tell you that they do the work despite being underpaid because it’s so satisfying to take care of people who need you.

I'm feeling less grinchy about gift-shopping and gift-giving now that Prof. Gopnik says that those activities spring from unconditional love(!). Just remember that the shopping mall still isn't a substitute for a temple of worship.

No, Thank You (Notes)

Christmas is the season of shopping, gift-wrapping, mailing, and spending, not to mention traditional activities like church-going, caroling, tree-trimming, and card-writing. The "chore" that is among the last on the list is composing thank-you notes, which are going "the way of the horse and buggy":

Writing a thank-you note requires keeping track of who needs thanking, crafting a message that strikes the right tone, thoughtful but succinct, neither florid nor terse. To say nothing of hunting down a mailing address, buying the cards and getting the stamps.

The obligations stack up particularly high at certain life stages: 20 notes to all the kiddies who attended Ethan’s fourth birthday, holiday gifts, newborn presents.

Even Lizzie Post, etiquette maven and great-great-granddaughter of manners arbiter Emily Post, thinks that while a handwritten note can convey special effort, a texted thank you is OK in most situations. Especially within groups of friends or peers, the thank-you text has become standard and accepted, she says.

A texted thank-you? Say it ain't so, Lizzie Post. What would your great-great-grandmother say?

To be perfectly honest, there are members of our extended family that don't bother with any kind of acknowledgment--text message, phone call, voicemail, email, or otherwise.

After a couple of years of no response, we have stopped sending gifts to them. It may be a win-win: less holiday shopping for us and not receiving a present that is desired by them.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to write thank-you notes for people that send me stuff because I wouldn't feel right if I didn't do it. Yes, I'm a prisoner of my upbringing.

The Limit of Advance Planning

Costco members buck the trend toward last-minute purchasing. Easter and Halloween products go on sale 1-2 months in advance, and the customers snap them up.

However, a full Christmas display (except for trees) four months ahead? That's pushing the limit of advance planning, and no, I didn't buy anything.

The Day After Christmas

Left: during the week before Christmas the mall wasn't particularly busy. We did our shopping at the Apple Store and exited to the plaza. There was no one within 50 feet of the Christmas tree.

Right: On the day after Christmas the parking lots were filled. This time people milled around the Christmas tree taking selfies. The Apple Store required everyone to make an appointment.

We stopped by to make an exchange. The recipient of an iPad wanted more memory (he paid for the upgrade), and fortunately one was in inventory.

We went to restaurant row and bought a cheesecake. The Christmas task list was finally complete.

Christmas Eve Service

The Episcopal Church welcomes everyone: male or female, old or young, black or white, straight or gay, believers or non-believers, masked or unmasked, sinners or non- ...actually, everyone sins.

The Episcopal and Catholic churches have a name for everything. The thurifer is the acolyte who holds the censer, which holds the incense. For those of us with allergies (cough), I'm glad the church doesn't burn incense as much as it used to.

The priest read the passage from Luke:

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

Bah, humbug! We go overboard with inclusive language. Much better:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Merry Christmas!

Songs of the Season

(Reprised):

In the late 1990's my former employer could draw on a talent pool of more than 200 financial professionals to put together a decent holiday choir. The grainy video (VHS tape) and monaural audio won't attract any hits today, but Christmas is a time of nostalgic sentimentality...



Note: here are parts Two, and Three.

Part Four is below:



Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow...

But the fates do not allow. As this year has reminded us, Our time together is fleeting, gone in the wink of an eye. Like the ghostly watchers in Grover's Corners, we have an eternity to mull the regrets of moments unappreciated until too late.

Spirit of Christmas

Presents for the kids, gift cards for the adults

There are still Christmas cards to mail and presents to shop for, but again we took a scheduled break to help out strangers (your humble blogger did so grumpily at the start of the morning and is not a good role-model).

After wrapping and boxing the gifts for the families assigned by Samaritan House, I called to schedule the drop-offs in San Mateo. The mothers and I (the mothers are always the contact persons) played telephone tag, made worse by the fact that their English is barely better than my Spanish. (My sour mood was also due to my Spanish-speaking friend begging off at the last minute.)

At the first appointment the lady of the house could not hide her joy at the sight of presents for her children. The delivery man's spirits improved, another confirmation of the truism that the giver receives greater rewards than the giftee.

When I delivered the next box, the lady asked me to wait. Her six-year-old son ran to their upstairs apartment and came back holding a small bag of hand-made items. Thank you. "You're welcome," he said.

I'm keeping the bag where I drink coffee every morning as a reminder not to let the busy-ness of life get in the way of the spirit of Christmas, a spirit that is alive and well in a little boy in San Mateo.

A New Mission

This week we took a break from shopping for friends and relatives and shopped for strangers.

Our Foster City congregation filled 50 boxes of food for clients of the Episcopal Church's Bayview Mission, which ministers to the residents of Bayview-Hunters Point. There was also room in the Outreach budget to replace the mission's freezer and place a Safeway gift card in each box.

Our new priest became familiar with and volunteered for Bayview Mission when he attended the Berkeley seminary 14 years ago. Not only has he brought fresh ideas and perspectives, he also has stimulated our suburban church into forming new relationships.

We expect to have a monetary and personal stake in Bayview Mission next year.

Re-Foaming

Regifting is a breach of etiquette in some circles, but re-foaming should be universally lauded.

We have received over a dozen deliveries for Christmas, but rather than immediately tearing down and recycling the boxes and packing materials we are re-using them for shipments of our own.

Some of these, like plastic foam, are non-recyclable, and it's an environmental benefit to use them for as many purposes as possible before they enter the landfill.

Whatever your views on recycling or the environment, dear reader, re-foaming can't hurt and may help. Here's hoping that you are surviving the busy-ness of the Season.

Upper Crust

I saw it. I wanted it. I can't get it. "It" is Hormel's Figgy Pudding Spam.

Let's start with what's in "classic" Spam: pork, sugar, water, salt, potato starch, and sodium nitrate (a preservative).

The new seasonal Spam includes additional "fig and orange flavors, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and all spice."

This is not your grandmother's Spam. FPS retails at 2 cans for $10 and can only be found at Walmart.com, Amazon.com, and Spam.com. I'm used to paying less than $2.50 per unit for basic Spam at Costco.

Figgy Pudding Spam is beyond my normal price point, but for this I'd make an exception.