Safe Holiday Season

By Safe Kids
Dec. 5, 2009

If you decorate a tree, Safe Kids USA and the United States Fire Administration recommend these precautions:

 

• Never leave a lighted Christmas tree or other decorative lighting display unattended. Inspect lights for exposed or frayed wires, loose connections and broken sockets. Do not overload extension cords or outlets and do not run an electrical cord under a rug.

• Natural Christmas trees always involve some risk of fire. To minimize the risk, get a fresh tree and keep it watered at all times. Do not put the tree within three feet of a fireplace, space heater, radiator or heat vent.

• Decorate with children in mind. Do not put ornaments that have small parts or metal hooks, or look like food or candy, on the lower branches where small children can reach them. Trim protruding branches at or below a child’s eye level, and keep lights out of reach.

• Do not burn Christmas tree branches, treated wood or wrapping paper in a home fireplace.

• Do not put candles on a tree or a natural wreath, or near curtains or drapes, and keep matches and lighters locked out of reach of children.

• Battery-operated flameless candles are an alternative that does not have a fire risk.  Decorative lighting should be labeled with the seal of an independent testing lab and should only be used outdoors if it’s labeled for outdoor use.

 

 

Tips to prevent poisoning:

• Keep alcohol (including baking extracts) out of reach and do not leave alcoholic drinks unattended.

• Color additives used in fireplace fires are a toxic product and should be stored out of reach. Artificial snow can be harmful if inhaled, so use it in a well-vented space.

• Mistletoe berries, Holly Berry and Jerusalem Cherry can be poisonous. If they are used in decorating, make sure children and pets cannot reach it.

• In a poison emergency, call the national Poison Control Center at 800-222-1222.

For in-depth fire safety information, visit the USFA’s fire safety Web site

 

Editor’s Note: About the United States Fire Administration is an entity of the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The mission of the USFA is to provide national leadership to foster a solid foundation for our fire and emergency services stakeholders in prevention, preparedness, and response.

We would like to know what you think. dan@youngchronicle.com  
Source: Safe Kids

Making the Holidays Personal

By Dr. Laura
Dec. 5, 2009

My husband and I were very disappointed when we learned that we could not be with our military son on Thanksgiving. 

We casually mentioned to some friends that we were just going to have scrambled eggs and bagels for Thanksgiving dinner, because without him there, it just wasn’t going to be worth the effort. 

Well, they kindly invited us to spend Thanksgiving with their family, and we accepted. 

I wanted to do something nice for them to really show them thanks for such a lovely gesture, so I knitted a seven-foot runner for their table.  When it was finished, it seemed so “plain,” that I spent four hours crocheting around the entire runner twice and added a fringe to the ends. 

When I gave it to her, she held it close to her chest near her heart, and her eyes teared up as she expressed her emotion for my putting in that amount of effort for her.  I have to tell you that I’ve never felt so moved by a reaction to a gift in my life.

She and her husband were doing something “personal” for me, and I wanted to return the favor. 

Having Thanksgiving with their adult children and a couple who mutual friends were made for a fabulous evening, with lots of laughs and a yummy turkey….mmmm.

So, I’ve stopped buying bottles of wine and chocolate-filled baskets.  I’ve been working around the clock for weeks knitting, weaving, or sewing Christmas presents. 

I finished my last project for my “peeps” on Sunday (our office holiday party was on Tuesday), so I had a bit of a crunch for time.  While it was exhausting and sometimes frustrating when equipment has a mind of its own, I feel giddy about giving gifts that are so much of me. 

Clearly, it means more to the receiver AND the giver.

To top it off, a few of my dearest friends sent me “Thanksgiving” e-mails, enumerating the reasons they felt grateful for having me in their lives.  It blew my mind.  It is incredibly touching to know that you matter to someone.

I’m writing these stories to urge you all to do the same this Christmas.  Don’t buy a card – write to that person and let them know why they matter to you and what you appreciate about them and how you feel grateful for them. 

Instead of purchasing something generally useless that they might never use and will not cause them to reflect on your relationship, make something or do something. 

For example:  plant some flowers on either side of their front door; make a rocking chair for the back porch; fix something on their property; take their kids for the night so they can have a romantic time to themselves….the list of possibilities is endless.

Make it personal and that doesn’t require ridiculous expenditures for gifts that ultimately don’t matter. 

Oh, and one more thing.  We will see our kid let for Christmas.  The tree is already up.

Source: Dr Laura

 

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think. dan@youngchronicle.com

God is the Friend of Silence

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Dec. 4, 2009

Do you know what “Joy logy” means? It is the study of caring, sharing, and listening and Sacrifice.

This was written by Mr. Jeineke in 1975

We would like to know what you think: dan@youngchronicle.com

What is a Joyologist? A joyologist then would be one who studies joy logy. Frankly our world could use a great many joyologists whose mission in life is to actively research the effects of discussing and sharing joy.

The research could branch out into how joy affects our careers, family lives, and friendships. The very act of doing the active research should spread jubilation throughout the world and bring about positive results. What a fun job!

All one needs to start with is to share the words joyism, joy logy, and joyologis with others. Use the words daily and make them a part of the world’s vocabulary.

The upcoming year is going to challenge us all. Here is something we need to think, this is from an unknown reader. It is called: God is the Friend of Silence

 

By Mother Teresa

We Need to Find God,
He Cannot Be Found in Noise and Restlessness.

God Is the Friend of Silence.

See How Nature . . .
Trees, Flowers, Grass
Grow in Silence.

See the Stars, the Moon and Sun . . .
How They Move in Silence.
The More We Receive in Silent Prayer,
The More We Can Give in Our Active Life.

We Need Silence to Be Able to Touch Souls.

The Essential Thing Is Not What We Say,
But What God Says . . .
To us and Through us.

All Our Words Will Be Useless
Unless They Come from Within.
Words Which Do Not Give the Light of Christ . . .
Increase the Darkness.

Source: Joyology

Who Were Our Presidents? Part 16

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/GCC
Dec. 2, 2009

Editor’s Note: How many of us along with our children? Know who our Presidents were and what they have done in Office.

Each week we will pick a President and tell you about them and their Accomplishes.

We hope that you will enjoy this series. And let us know what you think? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

 

Abraham Lincoln

 

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”

Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers.

Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party’s nomination for President, he sketched his life:

“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families–second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks…. My father … removed from Kentucky to … Indiana, in my eighth year….

It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up…. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher … but that was all.”

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois.

He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years.

His law partner said of him, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator.

He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause.

On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds…. ”

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln’s death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

Learn more about Abraham Lincoln ‘s spouse, Mary Todd Lincoln.

 

Source: White House

Editor’s Note: Today’s homework: We would like to know some of President James Buchanan’s accomplishments as President.

If you can give us some, you can win a prize. You can contact us at dan@youngchronicle.com

We Must Find Room for Jesus

By Jim Burns
Dec. 2, 2009

And Mary gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the Inn. -Luke 2:7

I love this story about a second grade boy named Wally. I can’t
remember where I got it from but I remember it being told to me
that this actually happened in a small town in the Midwest.

Wally was 9 and in second grade. He should have been in 4th
grade. Wally wanted to be a shepherd or an angel in the Christmas
play but Miss Lumbard assigned him the “important role” of the
innkeeper. I think it was because of his size and it had very few
lines.

And so it happened that the usual large audience gathered for
the town’s yearly extravaganza of beards, crowns, halos and a
whole stage full of squeaky voices.

No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wally.

They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination. tTat from time to time Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn’t wonder onstage before his cue.

Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly
guiding Mary to the door of the Inn. Joseph knocked on the door.
Wally the innkeeper was there waiting.

“What do you want?” demanded Wally, swinging the door open with
a brusque gesture.

“We seek lodging.”  “Seek it elsewhere.” Wally looked straight
ahead. “The inn is filled.”

“Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and
are very weary.”

“There is no room in this inn for you.” Wally looked properly
stern.

“Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary. She is heavy
with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some
small corner for her. She is so tired.” 

Now for the first time the Innkeeper relaxed his stiff stance
and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long
enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.

“No! Be gone!” the prompter whispered from the wings.

“No!” Wally repeated automatically. “Be gone!”

Joseph placed his arm around Mary and Mary laid her head upon
her husband’s shoulder and the two of them started to move away.
The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however. Wally stood
in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple.

His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears. And suddenly this Christmas pageant became different from
all others.

“Don’t go Joseph,” Wally called out. “Bring Mary back.” And
Wally’s face grew into a bright smile. “You can have my room.”

This season let’s make room for the Reason we celebrate
Christmas.

Source: Home Word

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think. dan@youngchronicle.com

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