Real Christmas Spirit

06/16/2024

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO THE MEN WHO HAVE HELPED RAISE US WHO DID NOT HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE CHILDREN .

“It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.” —JOHANN FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

This famous quote was penned by the 18th-century German poet Johann Christoph Fredrich von Schiller. The quote is a line from Schiller’s 1781 play The Robbers, a drama that revolves around two aristocratic brothers and their beloved father. The quote means that being biologically related to someone does not necessarily make them “family”; it is your emotions for someone that determine whether you think of that person as a father, son, etc.

A SALUTE TO THE CHILDLESS ON FATHER’S DAY.

A bittersweet, poignant and moving Fathers' Day salute to my older brother, Bart J. Bailey, who never married and never had children.
THANK YOU.
Thank you for your guidance and support.
Thank you for being steady and sober when I was impulsive and emotional.
Thank you for being a great example and a role model to my sisters and our children, nieces, nephews and their children.
Thank you for our great and memorable motorcycle trips through mechanical failures, flat tires, blazing sun, freezing rain, snowstorms, drenching and petrifying thunderstorms and a couple of tornadoes.
Thank you for countless hours of talking and laughing.
Thank you for bailing me out of jail and other countless trials and tribulations.
Thank you for being a patriarchal symbol to innumerable populace, in your community and worldwide. Young men and women, missionaries you helped spiritually and financially and therefore have in turn touched countless lives for good.

Although Bart and our father Jack have both passed on. Thank you for your guiding influences.
THANK YOU.

12/22/2023

12/20/2023

12/17/2023

This is quite lengthy...
Christmas Miracle
As a professional Santa Claus for over 25 years, I have had a few events which I can only describe as “Christmas Miracles”.
One happened a few years back. The experience was before Mrs. Claus came with me on my visits. I was visiting an elderly care facility in the area.
It is difficult to ask geriatrics if they been good or bad or even what they want for Christmas. So, I usually ask them what their favorite Christmas song is, or movie or their favorite cookie or treat or even their favorite Christmas memory.
Typically, I have the Activities Director or Head of the Nursing staff sitting nearby directing the residents and whispering guidance to me and helping them up and down from Santa’s lap or nearby chair. We go around the room, so everyone gets a chance to visit with Santa. As we approached a particular gentleman, she advised me that this man was non-verbal and did not speak. He had been in the facility for almost 4 months. He had no visitors, and he chosen not to communicate with anyone.
As he sat with me, I asked him some questions with which he could nod his head. I then forgot and asked him what his favorite Christmas song was. The Activities director looked at me with an astonished look on her face as well as most of the residents and staff. I felt quite embarrassed. He stood up and smiled at me. He then sang, in a beautiful and professional Tenor voice, I’ll be Home for Christmas. He sang all the verses, took a short bow because everyone was clapping and crying. He then winked and smiled at me and took his seat.
I was speechless and was totally in awe. The Activities Director was bawling and shaking her head. We had truly witnessed an event that I could only describe as a miracle or a direct gift from God.
I finished visiting with the rest of the residents and they all commented on the solo performance with this man.
I have spoken the Director since that time and she said he passed away about six months after my visit. He had never spoken or communicated verbally with anyone since the time he sang the song.
Christmas miracle? Maybe. I, personally believe miracles happen all the time. Philosophers typically hold that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.
Christmas is a time to celebrate one of the most remarkable miracles found in the Bible: the virgin birth of Jesus. God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary, a virgin who was engaged to Joseph. The angel explained to her that she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit without requiring a human father. Mary was initially upset by this news, but the angel explained to her that God was pleased with her and that she would give birth to a son who would save his people from their sins.
The virgin birth of Jesus, for instance, is a miracle because it is impossible for a virgin to give birth to a child without violating the laws of biology.
I have shared just one of the miracles with which I have experienced as a Santa figure. Maybe one of these days I will tell some other experiences which I found to be unexplainable.
Do you have a miracle that has happened to you during the holidays which you would like to share?

12/17/2023

I truly love sharing this message......

It was is December 23rd 1940. It was the middle of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg of London, the bombing that killed over 43,000 civilians and wounded 139,000 more. It was a time of terror and grief, a time of fear and loss. In this angst strangers appeared all over the city.
They were dressed from head to toe in crude red coats, trimmed in white fabric and each wore makeshift white beards. On their head they wore tin helmets (brodie helmets) instead of hats and over their shoulders they carried bags full of presents. Regardless of what people called them, Father Christmas, Père Noël or Santa Claus, they were instantly recognized by everyone.
More important, what they stood for was also instantly recognized. And although their bags were full of presents, the true gifts they brought were not contained in the small packages in their bags. The true gift was the Spirit of Christmas. It was about new life and hope. It was about how love survives and will overcome, even in the worst of times.
Many of us in the Christmas entertainment community put on our tin hats and became visible once more.
The times may have changed, but the message we represent remains just as true today as it did 80 years ago. It is about new life and hope. It is about how love survives and will overcome the trials and tribulations of the world. We strive to give the True Spirit of Christmas and it is needed today, more than ever. May we remember the real reason for the season and keep it in our hearts for the rest of this year and for many years to come.

12/07/2023

Lest we forget. Thank you Uncle Vern.....

On December 7th my Uncle, Vern Jacobs Hacking, then 21 years of age was at Pearl harbor when it was attacked. He was a machinist mate aboard the repair ship USS Vestal.
On Saturday, December 6, 1941, the repair ship USS Vestal eased alongside the USS Arizona at her berth at Pearl Harbor. Vestal moored herself outboard of the battleship, port side to port side. The Arizona had just returned from maneuvers and had scheduled some long overdue maintenance. She was due to move into dry dock the next week. The Vestal would begin the routine of rewinding the armatures of the battleship’s huge electric motors and other tasks that would shorten her stay in dry dock.
The crews of both ships settled down for a relaxing weekend. Scheduled work on the Arizona would begin Monday.
The morning of December 7th, Vern Jacobs Hacking was taking a shower getting ready for Sabbath day.
He was startled by a jarring blast on the other side of the bulkhead. It was a bomb meant for the Arizona. The next 60 hours were a nightmare.
The Vestal sprang into action, manning every gun from the 5-inch (130 mm) broadside battery to the .30-caliber Lewis machine guns on the bridge wings. At about 08:05, her 3-inch (76 mm) gun commenced firing. What ensued next was a fight for survival. Two bombs intended for more valuable battleships on Battleship Row hit the USS Vestal. One bomb struck the port side and penetrated through three decks. The bomb passed through a crew’s space and exploded in a stores hold. The explosion started fires that necessitated flooding the forward magazines. The second bomb struck the starboard side. This bomb passed through the carpenter shop and the ship-fitter shop and left an irregular hole about five feet in diameter in the bottom of the ship. Survival became the primary focus of the USS Vestal crew, while anti-aircraft fire became secondary. A bomb hit the nearby USS Arizona. Almost as if in a volcanic eruption, the forward part of the battleship exploded, and the concussion from the explosion literally cleared Vestal’s deck – sending Vestal’s gunners and crew overboard.
After getting back on board, the crew battled fires on board the Vestal caused by the two bombs had struck the repair ship. The Arizona was sinking and was going to pull the Vestal down with her, the Vestal crew were forced cut the mooring lines with axes, freeing her from the Arizona, My Uncle Vern was one of the seaman assigned to cut the lines. He later stated that this was one of the hardest things he had to do.
Seven men from the Vestal were officially reported dead, many others wounded.
The following weeks were busy ones for the crew of that repair ship. Not only did Vestal require repair to her bomb-damaged hull and bulkheads, the crew, was constantly called upon to assist in the repair of the fighting ships, which had a higher priority to dry dock facilities.
Uncle Vern was part of a detachment from Vestal’s weld shop that was sent to the capsized battleship Oklahoma that evening as desperate efforts were made to cut through the upturned hull and rescue sailors trapped inside.

Pictured are my Aunt Esther on the left, my Uncle Vern and my mother, Lorna, is pictured on the right.

12/06/2023

St. Nicholas Day, feast day (December 6) of St. Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop of Myra. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of Russia and Greece, of a number of cities, and of sailors and children, among many other groups, and was noted for his generosity. Some countries celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 5.
History
After the Reformation, St. Nicholas was largely forgotten in Protestant Europe, although his memory was kept alive in Holland as Sinterklaas. There St. Nicholas is said to arrive on horseback on his feast day, dressed in a bishop’s red robe and mitre and accompanied by Black Peter (Zwarte Piet), variously described as a freed slave or a Moor, to help him distribute sweets and presents to good children or lumps of coal, potatoes, or switches to bad ones. The Dutch took the tradition to New Amsterdam (now New York City) in the American colonies, where he was transformed into Santa Claus by the English-speaking majority. His legend of a kindly old man was united with old Nordic folktales of a magician who punished naughty children and rewarded good children with presents. The resulting image of Santa Claus in the United States crystallized in the 19th century, and he has ever since remained the patron of the gift-giving festival of Christmas. In Britain he was largely replaced with Father Christmas.

Traditions
In parts of northern Europe, particularly the Low Countries and some German-speaking areas, St. Nicholas Day has remained a time when children are given special cookies, candies, and gifts. In many places, children leave letters for St. Nicholas and carrots or grass for his donkey or horse. In the morning, they find small presents under their pillows or in the shoes, stockings, or plates they have set out for him. Oranges and chocolate coins are common treats that represent St. Nicholas’s legendary rescue of three impoverished girls by paying their marriage dowries with gold. Candy canes, which have the shape of a bishop’s crosier, are also given.

It is thought that over the centuries the legendary St. Nicholas was merged with similar cultural and religious figures. Significant among these were the pagan Knecht Ruprecht and the Roman figure of Befana, as well as the Christ Child (Christkind, or Kris Kringle). A number of countries have traditions in which a malevolent character accompanies St. Nicholas. In France, Père Fouettard, who legend holds tried to cook three boys in a barrel of brine, is said to whip naughty children or give them coal. In Germany, Knecht Ruprecht serves as St. Nicholas’s servant and gives children who do not know their prayers sticks, stones, or coal. The terrifying devil-like Krampus is common in many central European counties and carries chains, bells, and sometimes a large basket with which to threaten naughty children.

11/26/2023

Who's name, in you opinion, should be on the "Naughty/Needs Improvement List"?