Well, here it comes.  Now that my son, Dustin, is grown, Christmas does not hold the same twinkle of the eye, the same excitement, but it does have a way of roaring back in flashes.  Putting together Watchfire Music’s beautiful new Christmas compilation CD, “Joy To The World” was my first real hot flash this year because it reminded me of all those Christmas pasts and struck such a chord in my heart’s memory.

If you want to consider this a blatant ad, go ahead, but we’re very proud of this new WFM Inspirational CD.  It’s just full of great and poignant memories and new focuses on this special time of year.  For $6.95, people, it’s a great deal.  Take my word.

On top of it all we’re adding just today a brand new WFM feature called SEND TO A FRIEND.  Here you’ll be able to take advantage of this new feature that enables you to quickly send any of our CDs along with a beautiful personalized Christmas card to all the friends and family on your shopping list. They’ll receive the gift the same day you buy it and you won’t have to pay any shipping charges!

This year I’m doing nearly all my Christmas shopping in less that an hour just by using this feature.  I’m going to sit back, grab my cup of hot chocolate and give “Joy To The World” yet another listen as I’m sending it out.

Back in wealthier times I used to always rent a limousine 2 weeks before Christmas and shop Fifth Avenue.  It was always a special time to see all the NYC Holiday decorations and accomplish my shopping in style.  Trouble was I would spend more on the limo than the presents, but it was always a fun afternoon and evening.  You can say what you want to about NYC, but there’s no city like it at Christmas.  We go all out and in style.

For me now, Christmas is really about the spirit of giving.  That’s what still excites me.  Sending out this great music, making that special “Link’s Famous Chocolate Sauce Extraordinaire – Warm and Serve then Pig Out!” Buying that special surprise for the Missus, and even still, getting the tree – these are the things of Christmas that still get me going, get me smiling and feeling the spirit.

When I was a kid, it was always about ‘getting’, but Dad made sure that the ‘giving’ part was not forgotten in our family.  We always had to do something extra special for Mom and my brother and I would wrack our brains every Christmas to try to come up with that special something that would top last year’s present and please Dad.  Mom would have been happy with potato peelings in her stocking, but Dad made sure that every year Jim and I outdid ourselves.

One year Dad made it easy for us because he bought Mom a mink coat for Christmas and a mink hat.  Those were the days when a coat of animal fur was not a sin.  My grandma got to give her the mink hat and the two things that he had also bought for her were a diamond bracelet to go with the coat (not real diamonds, but nonetheless very elegant and sparkly) and a pair of long brown suede gloves that went to the elbow.  He let Jim and I choose which of the two we each wanted to give her.

Jim, being 5 years older that me, was a bit quicker to the draw than young Pete and jumped at the ‘diamond’ bracelet.  Before I could get the words out, he yelled, “Diamond Bracelet!” and I was ‘stuck’ with giving those boring brown gloves.  Oh how that hurt!  Dad got to, of course, give her the coat, Nana, the hat, Jim, the ‘diamond’ bracelet and I had to give her the old brown gloves.  I broke down crying.

It ruined my Christmas.  I dreaded Christmas morning.  I could just imagine Mom swathed in mink and diamonds tossing the gloves over her shoulder onto a pile of used wrappings to get quickly to the next present with little notice.  I was a solemn little boy that morning around the tree.

Mom cried over the coat, screamed at the hat, sighed deliriously at the ‘diamond’ bracelet and then began to unwrap my horrible present.  When she saw those boring brown gloves, she simply put them on and did not take them off the rest of Christmas day.  She wore them to lunch, she wore them to feed the dog.  She wore them to dinner and showed them off proudly to all our guests all day long.  I think she wore them to bed.

I went to sleep that night with the spirit of Christmas giving and haven’t woken up since.  She always wore the gloves with the coat.  She seldom wore the hat and the ‘diamond’ bracelet.  She once confided to me that the hat and bracelet “were a little much”.  But she loved those gloves.

Looking back, now I know that she and Dad were in cahoots.  They taught me a lesson of spirit – the true spirit of giving.  I have never forgotten it.  My excitement of Christmas giving is rooted in that experience.  May we all have similar times!

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.