"Plant flowers in others' gardens and your life becomes a bouquet!" — Unknown

It's Thursday, December 22, 2016, and I'm contemplating how that soon I will be greeting you for the last time this year from here at this workstation. I give a huge thank you to my dear friend and brother in Christ, the owner of our Company, for allowing us to shut down next week for a Christmas break. When we finish up tomorrow, I will actually be off from using this particular computer, Lord willing, until January 2nd. I am so looking forward to this little short sabbatical. Most of you know that I am a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, (IBRBS). This is a very active group that seeks to help and encourage those in the Santa Claus profession. Each day their Facebook page is filled up with photos of individual Santa activities. Many of them reflect charitable events in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospitals, and pediatric facilities. They show up on behalf of those dealing with physical limitations and learning disabilities. Reaching out to those with cancer. Showing some love for Autistic children. Think about it. A fellow shows up sporting a white beard, wearing a red suit, and suddenly hearts are lifted and eyes shine. Children who have lost all their hair put on a broad smile and their countenance is lit up like a Christmas tree. This may seem like a trivial thing to most folks, but, having personally loved on many with special needs, I can tell you, there's really not much like it. For those of my comrades in red who do so many of these events, I say, God bless you for showing up with some joy to help brighten the day and the life of someone in need. Amen.

It's always important to communicate clearly. I saw this photo the other day and I thought it was very telling in a number of different ways. I try to stay somewhat up to date with stuff happening in the modern culture but there are times when I hear kids talking forth and back and I have no clue what they are discussing. There's a particular commercial targeted to older people where the fellow hawking the product advises those interested to consult with their grandchild on how to place an online order. I see our grandchildren helping their MiMi with her smart aleck phone from time to time. She is always impressed with how much they know. Nearly every time I look at my Facebook I see more and more people, just regular folks, broadcasting live. It's a new function offered where you can produce a live video feed from wherever you happen to be. In the car, the kitchen, at the grocery store, whenever and wherever one wants to let the world watch them do their thing. It has given rise to those who wish to offer their live commentary on whatever happens to be in the news or of personal interest to them. It's pretty amazing to see how many of those are going on at the same time. There's now so many sending live feeds, I guess they will soon need to offer a multiple screen way of watching a dozen or more simultaneously. I can still remember when a TV program came on and it was a novelty for them to say, "Coming to you live and in person." Those times, they just keep on 'a changin'.

I am not into using those little emoticons or emojis as they are designated. That's those little faces and special symbols that are supposed to communicate your emotional response. A happy face would indicate you are happy. Now folks are getting into trouble because they either accidentally attach the wrong emoticon or they may even do it intentionally for whatever reason they have in mind. Then you have the ones that get mangled in the translation. They end up on the receiving end all distorted with no way of determining what was originally sent. I suppose I'm old school in that I typically try to write out whatever it is I'm wanting to communicate. I do believe in the use of images to convey a message but when it comes to things like how you feel about a certain comment or thought, clarity is the most important thing, as I see it. I don't mind people using these little ad ons. I'm just talking about my experience. I do that quite often. I'm sure you have noticed that about my sharing. I suppose that's why they call it a personal blog. I do hope you have a happy face day with the a-okay symbol added to it. See. That wasn't so hard. And, you don't have to look anything up to determine what I meant. May God bless us all is my prayer. Amen. .....More later.