What do you say when you are asked what you want for Christmas? Do you supply a list? Give hints? Point out something in the store and then walk away while it is being purchased? Or do you call attention to the infinite number of commercials that tell you to buy new cars with giant bows on top or jewelry that guarantees you holiday hijinks? These are all fairly common ways of indicating your gift of choice but this year I want something different.

What I want for Christmas is inexpensive, easy to wrap, and does not require waiting in long lines. More than anything else this Christmas I want…nothing! That’s right, nothing, nada, zip, zilch. For Christmas I do not want a gift and I have good reasons for that choice.

First off, there is nothing that I need. I have clothes, shoes, coats, hats, and gloves. In fact, I have too many clothes to the point that I regularly clean out my closet and give clothes away so that the things I wear have more room to breathe.

I have more electronics than I know how to work. I have computers, phones, a tablet, a GPS system, and a gizmo that tracks each of them in case I forget where I put them. I also have TVs, radios, an iPod, CD player, DVD player, and enough remote controls to fill a basket. Unfortunately, I can never find the remote I need when I need it.

I have plenty of food and don’t need candy, pastries, smoked sausages, or anything that comes in a can. You probably can’t have too much liquor but I have a well stocked wine cellar (read space under the basement stairs) and enough spirits to keep my visiting relatives properly tranquilized until they go home.

My book shelves are full and my Kindle is charged. I have access to more music than I can ever listen to, and I have plenty of toys.

So do me a favor. If I am on your Christmas list please get me nothing. You can send me a note and let me know that nothing is on it’s way, or give me a call to say Merry Christmas and ask how I liked your nothing. If you feel compelled to spend money this season, please spend it on the millions of people who do need something. Charities are good outlets as are food banks, churches, and Salvation Army kettles. Feel free to give them anything you like and I’m sure they will be very thankful. As for me, nothing will make me happier than, nothing.

This Christmas season, try not to focus on the gifts but on the things that really matter like love, forgiveness, gratitude and charity. When you do that, you will discover the true meaning of the holiday.

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As a person reaches a certain age, they start to think about their bucket list. A bucket list is a list of things you want to accomplish before you kick the bucket, and I don’t know about you but becoming an olympic athlete has always been high on my list.

I admire olympic athletes and wondered what it would be like to compete in a sport with the world’s attention focused on you. That’s all I did was wonder.I never attempted to compete in a sport because I am not athletic. As a kid playing baseball, I was always the catcher because I didn’t have to run far and in my husky pants, I made a good backstop. I was too small for basketball and didn’t like any form of pain or discomfort which ruled out everything else. I was in the marching band.

Since I didn’t run fast or have any upper body strength, I did not participate in sports. But I still wanted to be in the Olympics. I had just about given up on my dream when I was introduced to the olympic sport of curling.

Curling is a sport in the Winter Olympics that requires you to do two things, 1) slide a stone down the ice, and 2) operate a broom. I was pretty sure I could do both of those things so I signed up for lessons with my local curling club.

A curling club, I soon found out, was a bunch of guys who gave up video games for the night to slide around on the ice. But, one of the main attractions of the curling club is beer. Everybody brings beer to convince themselves that sliding a stone on ice is a good way to spend a Friday night. There were a few females in the club. They brought beer too. And many of the curlers brought their own brooms.

The broom is an essential part of curling because it is used to keep the ice clean. The cleaner the ice, the better the glide. The guys who brought their own brooms, carried them in cases like pool cues. Some brooms had names.

The other essential part of curling is the 44 pound stone that is pushed toward the target. To push the stone, you have to get down in the starting blocks or “hack” with your pushing foot in the hack and your gliding food resting on a teflon pad that makes it virtually frictionless. You push out of the hack on one knee and release the stone towards the target, which is 114 feet away, give or take a Budweiser.

I got down in the position and attempted to curl a couple of times before my knees, worn from years of marching band, told me not to do that any more. I was afraid that my curling career was over before it started when the teacher brought me a delivery stick. A delivery stick is used to push the stone down the ice, while you remain upright. It was made especially for people like me and I was back in the game.

Now I was able to walk up to the tee line with my delivery stick on my stone (no giggling) and glide my stone toward the target, or “house”, the goal being the little dot in the center known as the button. What I now had, was shuffleboard on ice and my years of working on cruise ships finally paid off. I kicked ass at shuffleboard.
There are a lot of other details involved with the sport, such as the post match broom stacking and beer drinking, and the bonspiel which is like spring break on ice, but all in all, I think I have found an olympic sport that I can compete in…on an amateur level…with a bunch of guys drinking beer. However, if my bucket list wish does come true, look for me at the Winter Olympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. I’ll be the guy with the stick.

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Halloween is nigh and it is time to prepare for the onslaught of
children, teens, and drunken adults who will ring our doorbells and demand treats. These treats usually take the form of candy, but this year, non-candy treats are being endorsed as an alternative to avoid food allergies, cavities, and obesity, and this gave me an idea.

Instead of candy, this year I will be giving out stuff that I was going to put in the garage sale. This way I don’t have to waste an entire Saturday to make $20 and haggle with a foreign lady over the price of a 5 cent item.

When the little trick-or-treaters come to my door, they don’t know what they’ll get. Maybe they’ll get a plunger, or possibly a toaster, or if they’re lucky, a National Geographic from 1972. It will be a true treasure hunt for them and it will rid my basement of crap.

When I informed the neighbors of my intentions, they threatened to pelt my house with Egg Beaters if I pawned off my junk on their kids. I am now back to square one and have to buy candy.

I went to Sam’s Club for candy because I needed a pallet of tuna and a fifty gallon drum of tomato sauce anyhow. As I passed the candy aisle I stopped to survey all of my options and came to the conclusion that candy isn’t cheap. I would be better off giving away cans of tuna.

There are a plethora of candy bars available but my favorite has always been about a quarter pound of Hershey’s Kisses. The candy bars I always appreciated however were Mounds and Almond Joy.

These confections are basically the same chocolate and coconut candy bar but Almond Joy had the addition of two almonds that I assume were joyous, hence the name. They advertised these two treats together with the tag line, “Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.” and now that I look back at it, I think this is how we need to treat our lives. Some times you are very serious but there are times when you just feel like a nut.

I feel like a nut most of the time but there are times when I feel nuttier than others. When this happens, I feel compelled to share my inner nuttiness with the world and do something to brighten their day. One time I got on an elevator with four ladies and asked them, “Ladies, do  these pants make my butt look big?” Funny how they all got off on the next floor.

I also enjoy going to the supermarket produce section and looking at the green beans. After careful inspection, I select one bean and put it in a bag. Then I proceed to the checkout where I carefully place my bean on the conveyor belt between the separating rods. While in line, I ask the other shoppers for the best ways to cook a bean. Their answers are always a treat and everybody has a good laugh at the weird guy with the legume.

So as we approach Halloween, I encourage you to let your inner nut roam free. Not just on special occasions, but anytime the mood strikes you. If you can brighten someone’s day with a comment, a joke, or just something nutty like buying one bean, do it. Before you know it, we could have the planet laughing.

Do it any time, anywhere, because sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.

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How many times have you found yourself at the bottom of the well,
experiencing problems in every possible aspect of your life, and said. “What else could possibly go wrong?”  Probably too many to remember.

When things seem to be at their nadir, something will come along, completely unexpected, that tops the worst thing to happen so far. It always happens and it always will. This is what worries me.

When I look at the state of the world I see ISIS (or ISIL); conflict in the Ukraine; continuing problems between Israelis and Palestinians; volcanos in Iceland; forest fires and earthquakes all over the place; global warming; the polar vortex; mid-term elections: increased taxes: and the Kardashians, and I wonder what else could go wrong?

The answer is a lot could go wrong my friends, a whole lot, which is why you need to be prepared. Now I am not talking about being prepared the same way a doomsday prepper would be prepared. I am not going to suggest building a subterranean shelter where you can exist for years on canned tuna, while pooping in a tin can, and watching the same 3 DVDs you brought with you over and over again. In my opinion, this lifestyle would fall under the category of Super Sucky.

Instead, just pour me a nice glass of Scotch while I relax on the deck and watch the mushroom cloud roll in.

But I digress. The preparation that I am talking about is the preparation needed to get through tomorrow. Heck, it’s what you need to get through the rest of the day. We need to be prepared for whatever is thrown at us because it could be a beauty. My preparation for what life throws at us is laughter and lots of it.

Mark Twain once said that “Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.” Let me add that man is also the only animal that laughs – and definitely needs to. Laughter is the element of life that keeps us sane in a modern world. It can ease the tension, lower the blood pressure, and give you a sense of calm. That’s why we need more of it.

But don’t rush into laughter too fast or you might sprain a funny bone. Ease into it naturally by watching funny movies or TV shows instead of the news. Hang around funny people. Before you know it you will be laughing and will start being funnier yourself. When you’re having a rough time, you will be able to say, “What else could happen?” and think up some pretty funny scenarios.

Let’s say you’re on a desert road, out of gas, and no cell service. What else could happen? Flying monkeys, for crying out loud, flying monkeys could happen!

So do yourself a favor and start to laugh more. If you laughed while reading this article, even if it was just to yourself and it was more of a chuckle than a laugh, you can find more of my musings at DaleIrvin.com.

If you think that adding more laughter to your life is a positive thing, you may want to consider adding more laughter to your next meeting or event; because you never know what else can happen.

Give me a call.

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The cause of the Post Labor Day Blues, or PLDB, is not so much that summer is over and it doesn’t concern going back to school. The PLDB are caused because we have no more holidays to celebrate until Halloween, Sure, there’s Columbus Day on October 13th and it will have some parades, but nobody has a family picnic or buys a mattress on Columbus Day like they do on other big holidays. For all practical purposes, we have nothing to celebrate until October 31st. Something needs to be done.

Devoting all of our efforts to this project, the research team at Irvin University has come up with a revolutionary idea. Between Labor Day and Halloween, each person would be allowed to pick one holiday, name it, and celebrate. All you need to select this holiday is a reason, and that’s where I come in.

I can give you a reason, a theme, a menu, and activities for the holiday of your choice. Just give me a date. Go ahead, yell it out. I heard September 18.

This was the TV premier of The Addams Family in 1964, and Get Smart in 1965 so it’s Nostalgia TV Day. Dress as your favorite character. A favorite would be cousin Itt. Just wrap yourself in masking tape, sticky side out, and pet the dog. You’ll have your costume in minutes.

What about September 27th? Celebrate the birthdays of two American icons, Wilford Brimley and Meatloaf. Dinner consists of oatmeal and meat loaf. As a party game, swap medications with the person on your left.

Somebody called out October 2, thinking they would stump me but October 2 happens to be Guinea Day, when Guinea celebrates their independence from France. The first party game would be pin the tail on the world map in an attempt to discover where exactly Guinea is. Dinner would be roast pork, and would be whimsically billed on the invitations as “Guinea Pig.”

Any day you want can be a holiday, which is a good way to look at life. If you consider everyday to be a holiday, your stress level will drop. Of course, so will your income because who’s going to hire somebody that takes every day off?

All I’m saying is that when life starts to get you down and everything gets more difficult to deal with, pick a day and create your holiday. If you’d like help with the theme for any particular day, drop me a note.

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