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Tag Archives: December 2014
Inspirational Quotes
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Winter Celebrations Around the World
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It falls on different dates each year, between January 21 and February 20. Visits to friends and family take place during this celebration. The color gold is said to bring wealth, and the color red is considered especially lucky. The New Year’s Eve dinner is very large and includes fish, noodles, and dumplings. Chinese New Year begins on February 19, 2015.
Christmas
Christmas is celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas in the United States brings together many customs from other countries and cultures. Around the world, family members help to decorate the tree and home with bright lights, wreaths, candles, holly, mistletoe, and ornaments. On Christmas Eve, many people go to church. Also on Christmas Eve, Santa comes from the North Pole in a sleigh to deliver gifts; in Hawaii, it is said he arrives by boat; in Australia, the jolly man arrives on water skis; and In Ghana, he comes out of the jungle.
Hanukkah
Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah, a holiday honoring the Maccabees victory over King Antiochus, who forbade Jews to practice their religion. For eight nights, Hanukkah is celebrated with prayer, the lighting of the menorah, and food. A menorah has nine candles, a candle for every night, plus a helper candle. Children play games, sing songs, and exchange gifts. Potato pancakes, known as latkes in Yiddish, are traditionally associated with Hanukkah and are served with applesauce and sour cream. This year Hanukkah starts the evening of Tuesday, December 16 and the last night is Wednesday, December 24.
Kwanzaa
On December 26, Kwanzaa is celebrated. It is a holiday to commemorate African heritage. Kwanzaa lasts a week during which participants gather with family and friends to exchange gifts and to light a series of black, red, and green candles, which symbolize the seven basic values of African American family life that are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.
New Year’s Day
New Year’s Day is the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar on January 1. There are often fireworks at midnight to celebrate the new year. Commonly served in the southern part of the United States, black-eyed peas are thought to bring luck and prosperity for the new year, greens (usually collards) bring wealth, and pork because pigs root forward.
Three Kings Day
At the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas comes a day called the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. This holiday is celebrated as the day the three wise men first saw baby Jesus and brought him gifts. On this day in Spain, many children get their Christmas presents. In Puerto Rico, before children go to sleep on January 5, they leave a box with hay under their beds so the kings will leave good presents. In France, a delicious “kings’ cake” known as La galette des rois is baked. Bakers hide a coin, jewel or little toy inside it.
Winter Solstice
The Winter Solstice occurs Sunday, December 21 this year. It is the shortest day of the year. People all over the world participate with festivals and celebrations. Long ago, people celebrated by lighting bonfires and candles to coax back the sun.
[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/winter-celebrations/” target=”blank” ]Source[/button]
Book of the Week: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
With A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens created a modern fairy tale and shaped our ideas of Christmas. The tale of the solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of the season by a series of ghostly visitors and given a second chance, was conjured up by Dickens during one of his London night walks, who ‘wept and laughed’ as he composed it. Taken to readers’ hearts for its humor, compassion and message of redemption, it remains his best-loved book.
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On this day…
On this day in 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol is published.
Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown into debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels.
In his late teens, Dickens became a reporter and started publishing humorous short stories when he was 21. In 1836, a collection of his stories, Sketches by Boz, later known as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, was published. The same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine children. The short sketches in his collection were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings by caricature artist Robert Seymour, but Dickens’ whimsical stories about the kindly Samuel Pickwick and his fellow club members soon became popular in their own right. Only 400 copies were printed of the first installment, but by the 15th episode 40,000 copies were printed. When the stories were published in book form in 1837, Dickens quickly became the most popular author of the day.
The success of the Pickwick Papers was soon reproduced with Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens published two more novels, then spent five months in the United States, where he was welcomed as a literary hero. Dickens never lost momentum as a writer, churning out major novels every year or two, often in serial form. Among his most important works are David Copperfield (1850), Great Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
Beginning in 1850, he published his own weekly circular of fiction, poetry, and essays called Household Words. In 1858, Dickens separated from his wife and began a long affair with a young actress. He gave frequent readings, which became immensely popular. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished.
Did you know…
The tallest Christmas tree ever cut was a Douglas fir that was displayed in 1950 at the Northgate Shopping Center in Seattle, Washington, USA.
It was 67.36 m (221-ft) and had 3,600 Christmas lights on it. It could be seen from 1 km (0.6 miles) away.
Make an Impression on Employees With These 3 Simple, and Free, Holiday ‘Gifts’
By PETER GASCA, Entrepreneur and Small Business Strategist
This time of year is when many business owners ponder how to demonstrate their appreciation to employees. Though much of the economy is doing very well, with 2014 being the best year for U.S. job gains since 1999, and stock markets at record highs, most small businesses and employees are not feeling it. Therefore, big gifts or bonuses will be difficult for most entrepreneurs to give.
So how can you show your appreciation without breaking your budget?
A small gift and holiday card may be in order, but you can make a much bigger impression by giving all of your employees a healthy dose of these three things:
Compliments
Early in my career, I had a job with a large home builder. The CEO of the company was a very personable and talented leader, and the first time I was promoted, she told me how much she appreciated my hard work and my great work ethic. Her compliment was sincere and unprompted, and it made such a big impact on me that I still remember where we were during the conversation.
Since my position was highly sought after in my industry, I often received recruiting calls from competitors. Each time, I was emboldened by the respect of my boss, so while the money might have been better, I always felt confident to turn them down.
With your team, do not be bashful about giving compliments, especially at this time of year. Be selfless and sincere, and your words will go much further than any small holiday gift.
Credit
Another great trait I remember about many of my role models was their humility. What I remember most was their ability to motivate others to a common goal by constantly giving credit for work. This acknowledgment of my time and effort constantly made me want to work harder and continue to make them proud.
This season, tell your team how much you appreciate their efforts and recognize them for the jobs they have done. Promote successes from the previous year, and even if your team was not completely responsible for them, dole out credit for everything. Appreciate the fact that without your team, your business could not exist. Your selflessness will be appreciated and will energize your team going into 2015.
Confidence
Another great characteristic of great leaders is their confidence. And by confidence, I do not mean self-indulgent narcissism, but rather confidence in the business and the team. Even if your company is doing well, remember that your employees and stakeholders need and want reassurance that their future is secure.
This holiday season, find a way to demonstrate confidence in your organization by leading from the top. Again, promote the successes from the past year, and set and share goals for 2015, which will show that you and your business plan on sticking around. Be sure to express that you believe that, because of the team you have, next year will be better than the last. The energy from your confidence and courage will be felt throughout your organization.
This holiday season, if your budget can afford it, do give your employees a small token of your appreciation for a job well done. Go beyond gifts, however, and give them all a healthy dose of compliments, credit and confidence this holiday season.
These are gifts that cost you nothing but will mean the world to your team.
[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240505″ target=”blank” ]Source[/button]
Interesting Words And Expressions – To snuggle in
Sometimes in cold weather, you just don’t want to go outside at all. If that’s the case, make yourself warm and comfortable at home with a blanket and snuggle in on your sofa, comfy chair or bed.
Which Book Would You Read?
To celebrate Joseph Conrad, we’d like to ask, which book would you read?
The Secret Agent
Author: Joseph Conrad
ISBN: 9780141199559
Set in early twentieth-century London and inspired by an actual attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory, The Secret Agent is a complex exploration of motivation and morality. The title character, Adolf Verloc, is obviously no James Bond. In fact, he and his circle of misfit saboteurs are not spies but terrorists, driven less by political ideals than by their unruly emotions and irrational hatreds.
Verloc has settled into an apparent marriage of convenience. Family life gives him a respectable cover, while his wife hopes to get help in handling her halfwit brother, Stevie. Instead Verloc involves Stevie in one of his explosive schemes, an act that leads to violence, murder, and revenge.
Darkly comic, the novel is also obliquely autobiographical: Joseph Conrad’s parents were involved in the radical politics of their time, and their early deaths left him profoundly distrustful of any sort of political action.
14,9 GEL
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Eyeless in Gaza
Author: Aldous Huxley
ISBN: 9780099458173
Written at the height of his powers, Aldous Huxley’s highly acclaimed Eyeless in Gaza is his most personal novel. Huxley’s bold, nontraditional narrative tells the loosely autobiographical story of Anthony Beavis, a cynical libertine Oxford graduate who comes of age in the vacuum left by World War I. Unfulfilled by his life, loves, and adventures, Anthony is persuaded by a charismatic friend to become a Marxist and take up arms with Mexican revolutionaries. But when their disastrous embrace of violence nearly kills them, Anthony is left shattered—and is forced to find an alternative to the moral disillusionment of the modern world.
A young man growing into manhood during war and economic turmoil is beset by doubts about politics and people. But in his blind wanderings to find an acceptable way of life, he is seduced by them for pacifist motives.
10,9 GEL
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Theme of the Week: Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He was granted British nationality in 1886, but always considered himself a Pole.
Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and always with an accent). He wrote stories and novels, often with nautical settings, which depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature.
Below is a trailer for the film The Secret Agent based on his book of the same name: