Amy Newmark's Blog - Posts Tagged "holidays"

I love this time of year... the lights, the decorations, and the music... but most of all I love spending time with family and friends.

Getting into the holiday spirit makes everyone feel good!

The 101 inspiring stories of holiday love and wonder in our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, is sure to jumpstart your holiday spirit!

Here is a preview of two of my favorite stories that show how our writers experienced the joy and wonder of the holiday season:

Learn how to count your blessings.
In the story "Christmas Oranges" Erinn C was always a bit disappointed when she got to the bottom of her Christmas stocking and found an orange. After all, it was taking up room that could have been filled with more candy. But when she was thirteen, she learned that her grandfather had grown up poor and an orange was a coveted treat that he only got to have once a year. Erinn’s mother was honoring her father by including that orange for her children, even though they lived with such plenty. Erinn understands now and says, “Now the orange at the bottom of the stocking is a reminder to be grateful for the beautiful Christmases that my parents gave me and for the hard work they did that ensured I could have an orange any day of the year.”

Everyone is family during the holidays.
In her story "The Broken-Wing Party" Phyllis McKinley was surrounded by friends and family who didn’t feel like celebrating Christmas. They were having health issues or grieving a recent loss or were separated from their families. Phyllis bought a scrawny, crooked little tree and invited her friends to a “broken wing” Christmas party. All the guests had something wrong in their lives at the time, and they were welcome to come in whatever mood they wanted, no Christmas cheer required. Of course, everyone had a great time after all, saying it was the best Christmas Eve ever. Phyllis says, “Sometimes, when we are unable to fly, it helps to just perch together, leaning our broken wings against the warmth of another person.”

Happy Holidays!

Amy Newmark

Life begins again at 60, right? Well, it does if you have the right attitude! As a person over 60 I am so excited to share with you our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Age Is Just a Number. This is a fun read for dynamic, active men and women in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and even nineties who prove the adage that age is just a number!

Here is a preview of two of my favorite stories about how your senior years can be the best part of your life:

1. It’s never too late to try that new thing.
In her story "Realizing a Dream" Beverly Burmeier's new normal is the constant pursuit of her dreams. She describes taking a beginner trapeze class in her seventies and being the oldest participant by a number of decades. But she did well, flying through the air and catching the trapeze with ease, then dropping onto the safety net like a pro. Her instructor was so impressed he taught her some additional tricks.

Beverly says, “This was truly a dream come true. But I learned more than how to fly on a trapeze that day. I learned that it’s never too late to try new things. Now I’m not afraid to step out of my comfort zone with activities such as ziplining, hang gliding, parasailing, paragliding, Flyboarding, and skydiving. I’ve traveled worldwide to fascinating places including Antarctica, India, Nepal, Cuba, and seven countries in Africa.”

2. It’s time to confront your fears and surprise yourself!
Confronting your fears at any age makes you proud. Sometimes you even surprise yourself with what you’re capable of doing. That was the case for Barbara Bartocci in her story "Going the Distance" after experiencing a major change in her life—a divorce after 30 years of marriage. Her younger brother Rob had been through a divorce himself, so he knew what she needed. He encouraged her to drive all the way from Kansas City to his waterfront vacation condo two hours north of Seattle. She would have the place to herself on weekdays and he and his girlfriend would join her on weekends.

Barbara was nervous about making the 1,800-mile drive by herself, but she did it, even camping outdoors along the way. And then she found herself enjoying the solitude at the condo and the time to do whatever she wanted, whether it was biking for hours, reading novels until two in the morning, or sitting on the peaceful deck sipping coffee.

Barbara says, “It felt less like an ending and more like a beginning.” When she returned to Kansas City after a few weeks, she says, “I carried with me the memory that in camping and driving to Seattle, I had done something way outside my comfort zone. If I could do this, perhaps I could navigate my new life.”


Amy Newmark

As you know from previous blogs, I love this time of year! Sharing the love and wonder of the holidays with family and friends is what Christmas is all about for me.

It's also a great time for our Chicken Soup for the Soul team... they started choosing stories for this year's Christmas book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Time for Christmas in early summer, and are especially thrilled that it's finally time for Christmas!

We can't wait to share these heartwarming and inspirational Christmas stories. They'll leave you glowing in the Christmas spirit!

Here's a sneak peek of one of our favorite stories... spoiler alert, there is a Christmas miracle!

In her story, "Gramma's Gift," Jamie Cahill talks about her grandmother, who loved Christmas and shared many traditions with her grandchildren and then her great-grandchildren, Jamie’s three kids. The kids would snuggle in their great-grandmother’s lap as she read them the same Christmas stories she had read to Jamie.

Then, Jamie’s grandmother had a stroke at age ninety-seven. Jamie and her oldest child drove from Connecticut to Pennsylvania to see her and say their goodbyes. During the drive they talked about life and death, and Jamie shared some of the Chicken Soup for the Soul stories that she’d read from people who believe that our spirits carry on and are still present after death.

Although Gramma couldn’t speak, Jamie’s daughter Lucie talked to her and said, “Send us a sign when you’re gone, Gramma, a sign that you’re with us.”
Jamie says, “Months went by, and one day Lucie asked me if I’d seen any signs from Gramma. No, I hadn’t seen any signs. I wondered if I should have told her those angel stories and created those expectations. Now she was waiting for a sign, in the literal way that a teenager would.”

Ten months after Gramma died, the next Christmas season arrived. It felt different without Gramma there. But Jamie still had a good time and on Christmas Eve, she hosted 30 people for dinner. Christmas morning, she was exhausted. After all the gifts were unwrapped, her husband took the kids to his parents nearby to see their cousins and open more gifts. Jamie took a quiet walk and thought about her missing grandmother, and then brought in the mail from the day before.

The top piece of mail on a big stack of cards was an envelope addressed in her grandmother’s distinctive script. Jamie ripped open the card. She says, “It was Gramma’s hand-painted Christmas card, a lovely watercolor she did every year:

Dearest Jamie, Tom, Lucie, Emmett and Clara,
To all 5 of you—
What a precious family! It will be so nice to see you on Christmas. Save a few hugs for me.
Love you,
Gramma

It was her grandmother’s Christmas card from the prior year that had never gotten to them. It had a postmark from a year earlier but Jamie’s grandmother had made a slight mistake in the address. Somehow, it arrived on Christmas Eve a year later, ten months after Gramma’s death, right when Jamie and her family really needed a little Christmas miracle—a holiday hello from Gramma!


Warm wishes for a happy holiday season!


Amy Newmark