Christmas Mine

The speaker talks about celebrating Christmas as an American Christian and acknowledges that there are other religions and people who don't believe in any religion. They discuss their holiday celebrations, including family gatherings and exchanging gifts. The speaker shares a story about playing with Nerf guns with their grandchildren and mentions making junk boxes filled with snacks and drinks for their family members. They also mention buying Christmas cards and decorations at discounted prices after Christmas. The speaker also mentions their mailbox being located by the street rather than by their house. Good morning, happy, Merry Christmas to you and any other holiday you may be recognizing. You gotta love America. And how was your holidays? Now, I say holidays because I'm a Christian, I believe in Merry Christmas, but I'm also an American, and this is a melting pot, I'm an American Christian. And so, I know, I understand that in the United States we got other religions and stuff like that, and people who don't believe in any religion at all. So, I'll honor that as an American. That's okay, that's my Christian hobby to do. But you gotta, you know, as I've, you know, people who know me, you know, no matter what you think of Jesus, whether he is Messiah, you know, Emmanuel, God with us, if you think he's just a prophet or a good man, or I don't believe in anything at all, historical evidence of his existence, and 1,700 years ago, some world leader thought, instead of praying for the sun to come back, which is pretty strange because it always does, not being no bother at science, let's just throw in the berth of, you know, honor the birth of Jesus. The Bible doesn't tell us to do that, and it's even got the season wrong. But hey, you're given time off from work or school, mainly for a Christmas break, but now there's also, you know, the other holidays attach itself to it. But if we didn't honor the birth of Jesus, hey, it's Tuesday, you'd be at work or school today. So, honor it a little bit, you know? Anyway, how was your holiday? Because, you know, peace on earth, goodwill towards men, but also I love the family gatherings. And yesterday was part one. Yeah, part one was yesterday. I got a runny nose. I'm going to take something forward and go take a nap, because I work nights, but I'm a day person during this time off, so I'm all discombobulated. So, I think, well, thinking whether I'm a day person or a night person, I'm going to nap on it and make my decision later on. But, as the traditional Ku Jet family thing is, it's going to happen every year. We had another Nerf gun war. I sort of did that. Went to my daughter's house. Yeah, her and her boyfriend are now engaged. Cool. I didn't give hugs or congratulations. I was still in shock and awe. And also, just everything was going on. I get there, and my daughter's sister-in-law's children were there. I also accept this daughter-in-law as one of my kids and her two daughters as grandchildren. I got two grandchildren of my own, but these two could use a grandpa right now. They lost their grandmother recently. So, okay. Ages five and three. Now, I show up. Anybody who looks at me, I got this beard. I show up wearing a red shirt. Santa Claus hat says Bob Lombard on it. And immediately when I walked in, these two girls are looking at me like, Santa! And I thought, well, I know what their parents brought them up with. They're ages five and three. They're like little Cindy Lou Who's from cartoons. Sweet, innocent little things. And then they're wondering why. Santa, why are you wearing short pants? Well, your auntie said that it's kind of warm here, so I didn't want to get too hot, so I'm wearing shorts today inside the house. It's kind of warm in here. You answer a five- and a three-year-old. And I encourage them to eat. And then I confess, they didn't like the green bean casserole, but I, you know, love the pineapple that they had along with the ham, so I trade it. And I told them, like, I don't like these beans, but I'm going to eat them first. That's how I trick my kids into eating. Eat what you don't like first. And that way, if you burp, the first thing you burp up is stuff that you like to eat, because it's the last thing you eat. See, it worked. They got them to eat their stuff they don't like. Eat it first. It'll work with these kids, too. But then, you know, I made junk boxes. My wife, you know, I'm not going to say arrested her soul. She's got babies, butterflies, and bunnies and Jesus. So, yeah. She made junk boxes for the kids years ago, which is inexpensive, but it's also, you know, six-pack of their favorite drink, non-alcohol, of course, and then some snacks that they like and a gift card and maybe something else. Like, my oldest son, when our company was on strike, he lent me these wool socks. And he was doing very good about it, you know, because we were out there and it was cold on Sundays and rainy and stuff. We had midnight to 6 a.m. Sunday shift, both of us. And he gave me these wool socks to keep my feet warm. I already had wool socks. But he gave me these anyway, so in his junk box, I gave them back. But I had one for me. I made my own junk box. I took it over there. The junk box was being passed around. Mine was handed to me. Didn't realize why you got one in your own handwriting addressed to you. Because I opened it up and my granddaughter opened up hers, and there's a face shield. Yeah, COVID is over, however. She's like, why the face shield? And I looked at it. I says, do you remember what we talked about on the phone? And I opened up mine a little bit. And what do I got? Two Nerf guns and 240 extra bullets. And she goes, oh. And she puts on her face mask on. And I, you know, my daughter's fiancee, his house, you know, saw him first. And says, Aaron, and I open up my box with your permission. Yep. Okay. Start firing away. And it's okay because my daughter's got a cache of Nerf guns. And that's what we were doing. Nerf guns all over the place. But there was a rule. You could not shoot anybody under the age of six. Which meant the five and three-year-old little adorable Cindy Lou Who's were off limits. Then I did one worse. I handed them my Nerf guns. Now they're firing at people. And you can't fire back. And what did my granddaughter do? She hid behind one. She had a human shield. Like, oh. And that's cheating. If I would have saw that, I didn't see that, heard about it. If I would have saw it, I would say, nope. That's against the law there. It was kind of funny because the little girls were getting gifts, too. And they were opening up the gifts. And, you know, you can't tell a five and a three-year-old, oh, this is from your aunt. And this is from your. No. You just gave it to them. They opened it up. And there's some socks. And what did they do? They looked at me. Thank you, Santa. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to play along with this five and three-year-old. You know, your mommy said your feet get cold in the wintertime. So you got to have socks on to keep your feet warm, even in the house. Everybody enjoyed their junk boxes. Two of my kids couldn't make it. One's sick. I'm going to see the other one today. And maybe for the ill one, I can get it for her this week, her junk box. Every time I go to make them, I ask everybody, hey, make a junk box for Christmas. What do you want to drink? Snacks, stuff like that. And she's a challenge. Over at a Whole Foods store is where she wanted her drinks from. I looked it up online. There's one 19 miles away. No. The last time I made a junk box or drink was a certain brand. They sell at the local store. However, it was the right brand, wrong flavor. Go to another local store. Same thing. Bought the fifth one, finally found it. And then this year, it's like, well, I'm going to look up on Amazon. Hey, look, it's like DoorDash kind of thing, whatever they deliver. 19 miles. Somebody traveled 19 miles to deliver, like, two 12-packs of this 365 pop I never heard of. And some marshmallows. Special kind of marshmallows. Keto, I don't know. I didn't memorize it. I just know I got it, and it's in a bag inside of a box. And I'm thinking, you know, the next time I make junk boxes, I swear this girl is going to order something from farther away. Out of state or out of country. I want this kind of snack, and I can only find it in France or something. So I better start the junk boxes earlier next year, huh? Jackie started early, like September. Sometimes maybe July. Hey, and by the way, people, it's December 26th. You know that a lot of that Christmas stuff is now on sale. What I'm going to do this week is my friend Jane, she likes to give up, send out Christmas cards. I'm going to buy her some this week while they're all, like, 50% off. Because, see, if you've got your tree and decorations up, you know eventually they've got to go away. They've got to be packed up and put away until next November or October, September, whenever you set up your Christmas stuff. But if you buy these Christmas cards now at 50% off, you've got to put your Christmas stuff away, put the cards in the box, and you've got them 50% off for next Christmas. If you want or need new ornaments, hey, they're on sale now. If you want or need a new artificial tree, they're on sale now. Hey, it's the, oh, the mailman came by. Thank you, mailman. You now know that my mailbox is by the street and not by the house. I'm the only one, the only house on the block that has a, oh, he had to read the sign. See, I got my security cameras out there and he triggered it. And what had happened is every, I'm the only one on the block with the mailbox by the street, not on the house. So they go walk along the house and I got a recording of one mail carrier. She was on her phone while delivering the mail. And now she's thinking out loud, where's the mailbox at? So I put a sign on my door. I got two signs on my door. One says, day sleeper. Is this visit really necessary? And the second one says, my mailbox is by the curb. And the reason it is because the previous owners had three big dogs. And, you know, I guess they didn't want, you know, take any chances of the dogs opening up the door when the mail carrier came by and attacked them, got outside. So they put out the mailbox all the way by the street. There was one time I didn't get my mail. There's no mailbox on the house. It is a car in the driveway. You know, what are you going to do with my mail? I got a plastic box on my porch. That's for, like, if I order stuff from Sam's Club or something, some kind of food. And you put the food in the box and the squirrels can't get it. Because one time I had two boxes of chocolates delivered. The squirrels ate one whole box. I could tell there was a little hole in there. And they were going after the second box. I go outside. I see that carnage on my porch. They didn't leave any wrappers. They didn't eat it right where they was and take the, you know, eat the chocolate, leave the wrapper. No, all the wrappers and everything was gone. Somewhere in a hollow tree somewhere stored up for wintertime, there's a bunch of three musketeers and Milky Way bars. And I thought they would just eat the Snickers. But no, they got stuff that doesn't have peanuts in it. So I'm talking out loud to the squirrels. I don't see, like, I hope you all get stomach aches. So I got to put specific instructions, put it in the plastic box. And I got peanuts just for the squirrels so they'll leave my garbage alone. And one of them will actually come up and take it from my hand. And he's the aggressive one, and he's a black squirrel. I call him Moe because Moe Howard had black hair. And he was aggressive in the Three Stooges movies. So then another time I wake up. When I have to work, I shut off everything on my phone except for the alarm. So you call up. There's no ringtone. There's no notifications because my kids are gay people except for my oldest. And then I'll be texting back and forth. And that's okay. That's cool. And then I get notifications about emails and stuff. So I got to shut down all the volumes. I'll wake up at 3.30 p.m. and check everything. Hey, somebody was at my door. I go to take a look at the video, turn up the volume. Jehovah's Witnesses. They're about to knock on my door and tell me about Jesus. And I looked at the sign, like, oh, okay, um, day sleeper. Well, I guess this isn't necessary. And I walked away. And I thought, who are these people? Where can I find them? And go up there and say something like, my eternal salvation is not necessary. Hmm, not worth making me up for. Only I would think of stuff like that. So, today is part two of Christmas. And then I'm going to see some friends this week. Going to see some in-laws Thursday. And that's just the way it is. I guess if I want everybody to gather together, I got to plan 12 months in advance. Maybe a little longer. Maybe 24 months in advance. Going to have to do that. But my living room is a lot clearer now. No boxes in there. Junk boxes given away. I got a couple more to deliver that will be done today. And then all the other boxes, I cut them up and put them in recycling. And that's going to be picked up any time now today. So, yes, I can see the floor in my living room. I can even live in my living room. But what happened yesterday on the way to my daughter's house is, you know, a guy on the street corner, you know, homeless, and accepting donations. And I thought, I've been blessed recently. He rolled down the window and gave me some money. And I did that to another one. And I remember how, you know, it was on the news there was a woman who was out, you know, begging for money, you know, by a Walmart, I think it was, the exit. And the local news was spying on her. And they found that at the end of her day, she got into a brand-new Ford F-150, and they followed her, and she lived in a $300,000 home. And they're like, why are you begging for money? And they cornered her. And, you know, she closed the door on her face and all that stuff. There was another instance where this guy was begging on the corner, but he was at the corner of an auto dealership. And the manager of the auto dealership offered him a job. You don't have to beg anymore. Here you go. And what did he say? No, thank you. I'll make more money doing this. So the auto dealership, you know how they would lift up the hoods for some of the vehicles along the street? And they got a little sign, letters put in each one, so you back up, you know, for sale, whatever. They had one talking about the guy begging on the corner. You know, we offered this guy a job, and he refused. Well, people ain't going to give him money. Like, oh, you can't get a job? No, no, no, no. You were offered a job, and you turned it down. You got a chance to earn a living, and you'd rather go begging. And then finally there was out in Sam's Club nearby me, Sam's Club and a Wal-Mart next to it, and, you know, the driveway and stuff for both of them in between. There would be a family out there, mom, dad, and you see a stroller out there, and then there's a vehicle parked in the corner of the parking lot with a hood up, and they got a sign that says, need gas money. So I'm thinking, you ran out of gas, you know, at the corner of Sam's Club when you passed up a gas station. If you are very low on gas in your home, why are you even home? And so it was thrown on Facebook about this family because, you know, you see a stroller, but there's no baby around. That was odd. And you put that out on social media, and other people are responding, hey, they was at the Sam's Club, you know, in another city just the other day. And someone else, well, they was over at this Wal-Mart, you know, on this day. They're like, oh, they keep on running out of gas at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. You know, so there's people out there on the corners that abuse the system. What I do is over at my church there's a lighthouse ministry, and what I do is I donate to that. They help the poor and the working poor and the needy and the hungry and those who need clothes. And they work with other congregations, you know, for homeless people and other stuff. And my pastor said that when you go shopping and you get coins, save them in a jar on Sunday morning, dump them in a basket, and they take that money to buy food for the needy. Because how we can get, you know, chicken noodle soup, three cans for a dollar. They get it, you know, for a better deal and stuff like that. And then, you know, some of the grocery stores, you know, donate day-old bread and stuff they can't sell, and it's still good. And there's restaurants, by the end of the day, they don't want to throw their food away. They give their food. And, you know, that's something worth donating to. And so, you know, that's something I can give to that will help the needy and the honest needy people, not the ones who live in $300,000 homes or the one who always seems to run out of gas at Sam's Clubs and Walmarts. There was one on an exit from a freeway where I used to live. I used to take a freeway down to the main road where my work is on, and there's an exit, and there's a red light for the people coming off the freeway. And there'd always be somebody standing on the corner with a sign. And there was one, you know, that was there, and I was in front. Red light. I got the road on my window, get some money out, hand it to this young lady. I said, here, here's a card for a lighthouse ministry, too. You know, where's it located at? Over here in the Westland, you know, over here, you know, just a couple miles east. And she says, I'm from Belleville. Well, she's at the border of Wayne and Canton. And she said she's from Belleville, which is about nine miles away, and there's a freeway going through there, I-94, and major exits there. Three of them? And I wanted to, you know, light turn green, but I couldn't ask her, like, what are you doing here, begging, and how did you get here? I'm suspecting someone drops her off and comes by and picks her up. You know, using up all that gas that could be the people that begged for gasoline money over at the Walmarts. But then there was one other one. And he brought about five cars back at this red light. And you want to hand them some money. You feel sorry for them. And this woman's holding up a sign that says, anything helps, which means if you've got spare change, some coins, anything helps. And I was thinking about it, and I looked, and she lit up a Marlboro cigarette. I thought, what are they now, $10 a pack or something? You know, anything helps? Light turns green. Instead of slowly handing my hand out with some money, she's just going to use it to buy more cigarettes. I thought I would, you know, anything helps. I thought I'd give her some advice. Quit smoking, I said as I drove by. And she swore at me in response. Yeah, there's a lighthouse ministry on Palmer Road in Westland. That's what I donate to. And at times I'll go up there and see people getting some food. And they need help loading up their car. You know, it's either their car or they call a friend who would pick them up. They need help. They would like prayer. Hey, right there. Sometimes, you know, there's too much food donated from, you know, grocery stores and other places. And a pastor would say, hey, look, we've got too much food. And if it doesn't leave and go into your house and into your belly, it's going to get thrown away because it's going to go bad. So at times, you know, I'd go in and see what they have, anything I can get. Crescent rolls. They had an overabundance of crescent rolls. This week I'll have some crescent rolls for breakfast. Anyway, I went off on a rant, didn't I? Yes, I did. Didn't mean to. I should take notes on these. But, you know, didn't do much for Christmas. I didn't ask for much. I got a little. It's not my birthday. We're honoring mine. It's in May. You know, give to somebody who needs it. You know, I just love a good church service and give me some tunes. Let me go driving around and see other people, you know, using up their electricity like the Griswolds to decorate their house. Great. There's a light show. That's good enough for me. For other people, you know, tell them the reason for the season. If it still wasn't for honoring the birth of Jesus, you'd be working today or going to school today. And then you would have a, oh, my goodness, you would have probably, well, you wouldn't have Monday, January. Well, you'd have Monday, January 1st off. So you'd have a three-day weekend coming up, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So was it for honoring the birth of Jesus? If you're off work or off school this week, you still got a chance. But also, you know, you get this giving spirit to people. Can we do that all year? Because it feels good to give, doesn't it? To see smiles on people's faces. Do that all year round. Make that a habit. Anywho, I've been talking too long. I don't know when I'm sleeping. I'll find out when I'm sleeping and my schedule is. So I think I'll go take a nap. Good night. And it's Christmas part two. How you doing?