The Giving Tree

Living in the US for my first holiday season is going to be a unique experience. Political correctness will play a huge part, and as a manager in a US organisation, I will have to be especially sensitive of some of the individual sensitivities.

There has already been some religious oriented people raising concerns with respect to the devilish Jack-o-Lanterns, and right around the corner there will be concerns about Christmas trees, the word Christmas being offensive to non Christians, etc.

I know at this point, my UK readers will be hitting the floor in disbelief, but it's true. America, for the most part has gone so far from it's old culture towards respecting diversity, that the average middle aged white American feels very much the underdog. All sorts of festivals, eg Ramadan, Hanukkah, etc are celebrated openly, but don't dare mention Christmas, for fear it may offend, and as for secret Santa!

Last year we had secret snowflake and purchased gifts for each other from a randomly chosen list. I am sure, of course, that some of these gifts were great, funny and thoughtful, but I am equally sure that a number of them were trash and probably went straight in there. This year we have a much better plan. We have chosen a needy local family with an assortment of kids, some born to the family, some fostered and we are going to make their holiday dreams come true.

We have the Giving Tree in the office with a number of tags on it, where the family have written their hearts desires. We get to choose the gift and then go buy it for them. I have chosen an 8 year old boy who wants some Matchbox and/or hot wheels cars and a 10 year old girl who wants a basketball. I am gonna have some fun shopping for those!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vote For The Cutest Baby

Image
If you think my little girl is just the cutest thing your ever saw, then please vote for her. I recently entered her in a local radio station contest, and we only have about a week to vote to get her through this round, then I would guess some other voting in following rounds. Click here to go to the site and vote , as many times as you can/want, although I think you have to register before you vote, so I understand some people will not want to do that. Vote early, vote often!
Read more

Webcast Is Coming

Image
I have been working with a guy in the office, to get this thing going (although really he is the technical whizz on this). The long and short of it, is that it looks fantastic. We tried it last night. The picture quality is a little jerky, but the sound is great, and it's not like we will be running around. We still need to go to the venue and test it there, then set up all the connections and stuff, but barring some major failure..it's on! It will be broadcast here .
Read more

News Update

Image
Well it's been a while since I posted any news about what is going on here with us, so I thought I would kinda pull together thoughts from the last few months. The first and most exciting news is our forthcoming new addition. Our first child is due September 25 th , for those of you who haven't read in a little while or seen the posting, click here . All is well, and we are trying to plan our year, including any trips, especially where flying is involved, before it is too late for Lorraine to fly. According to the due date we are at 15 weeks right now, and there is not much else to tell. She is not really showing yet, no kicking, etc. She was as sick as a dog on dodgy dog food for the whole first tri mester , and whilst she is much better now, she still has some issues in the evening. I mention the dodgy dog food intentionally because of an issue which is only getting worse here in the US. For months a major rebranding manufacturer (name withheld to protect from law suits :-) ...
Read more