Happy happy December,

Last Christmas a friend gave me a beautiful handmade diary, and every night I made the effort (and some nights it was an effort!) to write about 5 things that I’d done that day.  Not a lot, just a comment or 2, but something.  There were the big entries, ‘spoke at a conference in front of 8,000 people’, ‘flew to New York (never ever thought I’d get there, so excited!)’, ’ met my overseas friends at the AATH conference is Orlando Florida (I never thought I’d ever get there either!)’ and the seemingly  tiny or perhaps insignificant in the bigger scheme of things stuff, ‘new plants in the garden’, ‘dinner with friends’,’ going to a gallery’, a note about a conversation with a stranger on a bus, a comment overheard in the street that made me smile.  This year both my children left home, my business has grown in leaps and bounds and I have met new people and sadly lost old friends.  The thing I love about the diary is that when I read each day’s entry I go right back there, feel the emotions, see the spaces, live the memory.  It’s like my very own private mindful meditation in a book.  This coming year it might be something you might like to do.  Keep a daily diary.  I have a friend who hates the very thought of a diary so she calls hers a day book, it makes us smile.   

I already have my diary for next year.  A friend made it for me and the story of the giving is my happiness thought for the month.

My friend shares a house with a lovely family called the Martins.  Her name is Amanda and she was born 72 years ago blind and partially deaf.  At around 6 months of age her family put her into an orphanage because, with 7 other mouths to feed they simply couldn’t look after a child with such needs. She’s grew up and lived in state care until 1991 when a series of events brought her and the Martins together, and at age 52 a blind and now fully deaf but wonderful woman was finally adopted.  She’s done more in the past 20 years than many people do in a lifetime and is one of the most loving and grateful people I know. 

Anyway, back to the diary.  2 weeks ago the Martins held a Christmas Party.  They are all spending a month in Fiji, and they didn’t want to miss Christmas with their friends.  They have a rule that gifts must be hand made by the giver and that no money should be spent on wrapping.  You have to use what you can find and everyone gets really creative. The giving is quite the ceremony and the wrapping becomes a part of the gift.  Amanda proudly handed her gifts to each of the 15 of us.

They were roughly wrapped in pages from a Chinese newspaper.  We all laughed when she said she couldn’t read the paper and added “Not because I’m blind, I just don’t read Chinese!”, and she assured us that you could tell just by touching the print that is was good stories and funny tales and full of the goodness of one human to another. 

The ribbon, and there was metres of it on each present, was the brown plastic tape you find inside a cassette.  Remember cassette tapes?  Am I showing my age?  Amanda told us that she sat on the beach and recorded the sounds of the ocean on to 3 cassettes and then she pulled the tape out and used it for the ribbon.  She told us how we could never play the tape but we could keep it with us and we would always have the sound of the ocean with us.  It’s only been 2 weeks since the gift giving and 4 of my corporate groups have already meditated with Amanda’s ocean sounds, I keep the tape in my meditation kit! 

Inside the each of the wrappings were roughly made books.  The covers are thick cardboard printed with 2 of Amanda’s favourite photos, one on the front and the other on the back.   Mine were one of hundreds of bikes in a bike rack, taken last year when the family went to China, and the other the cracks in the ground made when mud dried in the sun.  Amanda told me that mine represent peace in chaos and chaos in peace and she had special stories for each of the 15 people in her gift giving ceremony.  She took all the photo’s herself with her beloved camera that is never far from her reach.  She might be blind but she loves photography and gets some amazing shots.  She tells me that sometimes seeing gets in the way of really seeing what is going on.  Her wisdom will be the source of many an upcoming Happiness Hotline!

The content of the books made me cry with an embarrassment created by humility.  Amanda had printed out the last 24 Happiness Hotlines, made 15 copies of each and then used each page to form a left hand page of text.  In each of our diaries the Hotlines were in a different order so none of us would be on the ‘same page at the same time’ and, if we chose to talk about the Hotline we would all have something different to share.  The pages on the right she divided into 15 or 16 rows and each row is big enough for us to write at least 5 things about our day.   I admitted that I was embarrassed to think that the words from my Happiness Hotlines would greet each of us every time we opened our diaries, but Amanda assured me that as soon as I hit the send key on the newsletter programme, while technically, in copyright terms the content remains mine, they are no longer my Happiness Hotlines, they belong to the world.  She hugged me and said how she loves the Hotline and how she knew I would never remember what I’d written in past months and that if re-reading the words of past Hotlines made her smile she thought they might make us smile as well. 

Over dinner she suggested that I should produce the Happiness Hotline diary, sadly this year it’s a little late, but may be next year.  Then she added with a sly laugh, that I could buy the idea from her.  She’s such a scallywag!!

What creative ways can you think of to spread happiness and joy this holiday season?

I’ve only just begun to think about Christmas or the holiday season and apart from my gifts to Amanda and the Martins and our shared friends, let’s just say I have lots to think about and lots to do!

Don’t forget you can find us on Facebook and twitter and if you have any happiness ideas you would like to share or comments you would like to make about the Happiness Hotline or any of our programs drop us a line at bronwyn@letslaugh.com.au 

Also a big congratulations to all our friends at the Smile Project.  They’ve reached 5000+ followers.  Well done Smile Project!  Thank you for all the smiles!

This is our last Happiness Hotline for 2011 and from all of us here at Let’s Laugh, Jayne, Bob and I, we wish you a Happy Festive Season and a Joyous New Year.

Keep laughing