Give an Orange this Christmas

It's that time of year when we spread Christmas Cheer!

Right?

I mean that's what Christmas is all about.

Or wait, should we really be spreading cheer all year long.  

Should't we take some time throughout the year to spread cheer and to give up something that we have (time, money, passion, gifts) to someone else?

When I was younger, the Marsh girls from Little Women were my heroes.  They taught us a forever lesson when they woke up on Christmas morning in the middle of the Civil War with cheer and delight to enjoy their Christmas meal and their orange.  Their precious, exotic orange that Miss Amy did not want to give up.

But she eventually did and they packed up their fancy Christmas meal to take to the Hubbell Family who had fallen on harder times than the young women.

  They sang and had plenty of Christmas Cheer during the cold, dark war and found the time, courage and passion to give to others.

So this holiday season, don't forget to buy an orange for someone who is not 

as fortunate or gifted, as rich or loved as you may be.

Winston Churchill said it perfectly, "We make a living by what we get.  We make a life by what we give."

While you're at it, share a little of your family traditions along the way.  It was my dad's idea to stick a peppermint stick in the exotic orange in the middle of the cold, Indiana winter and suck out the good juices.  

And when the sweet juices were gone from our orange or we didn't get what we wanted for Christmas, he would say what he would always say, "that's just part of it.  Not everyone gets or has what they want." 

Which is another reminder this holiday season.......