“What worn-out shticks are blinding you to the blessings that life is conspiring to give you?”–Rob Brezsny
Twice now, People magazine has sent me out to interview a Kansas City Secret Santa who passes out $100 bills. It was a hoot and a half to join him, to see the expression on people’s faces when he’d peal a couple hundys off his stack and hand them over.
So in the interest of continuing my long-standing journalism career, here are 21 additional reasons to be of good cheer this holiday season:
1. A mystery woman walked into a Toys R Us in Bellingham, Massachussetts and paid off the entire store’s layaway balance, allowing strapped parents to pick up Christmas gifts for their kids.
2. Gas prices have dropped below $2 just in time for holiday visits to family.
3. The gorgeous beaches of Cuba are about to reopen to vacationing Americans.
4. Oakland Raider’s tackle Menelik Watson just donated a week of his salary ($37,000) to Ava Urrea, a four-year-old girl who has had 14 heart surgeries.
5. Natalie DuBose, whose Ferguson, Missouri bakery was vandalized during the protests, received more than $250,000 in donations from total strangers.
6. The curve is bending on new cases of HIV. More people are being treated than becoming infected.
7. Enough said. This note was left on a car in Edmonton, Canada.
8. Gay marriage is now legal in 35 of 50 U.S. states.
9. An Ohio high school student took his 89-year-old great grandmother to prom because she’d never been.
10. A cop in Montreal has been stopping drivers and, instead of passing out tickets, is passing out $100 bills.
11. Global life expectancy has risen by six years since 1990.
12. Nearly 200 countries signed a bill to reduce the use of foreign fossil fuels.
13. A Dallas woman has donated more than 15,0000 house cleanings for people going through chemo.
14. A 12-year-old from San Jose, California, built a Braille printer (it’s called a BRAIGO) out of LEGO Mindstorms (it’s the souped up version) that lowers the going $2000 price to an affordable $350. He even offers open source plans online for free.
15. A police captain in Omaha, Nebraska organized a Valentine’s card campaign for her sergeant who remarked that he’d never received a Valentine’s card as a kid. He got hundreds from people all over the country.
16. A former professional ballet dancer developed a dancing wheelchair so all of us can dance.
17. My buddy Nick Ortner has been donating free tapping instruction in Rwanda. There’s even a movie about this inspiring project that you can watch for free (if you do it in the next two days)
18. Michelle Obama has volunteered the last four years to take calls for NORAD’s Santa hotline.
19. A New York City software engineer gave coding lessons to a homeless man. He offered him either $100 or two months of coding lessons. After just three and a half months, his homeless protégé developed Trees for Cars, a smartphone app that helps commuters organize carpools.
20. Scientists dated a bristlecone pine tree in California’s White Mountains as the world’s longest-living organism. It’s more than 5000 years old, older than the pyramids
21. And the E-Cubed Selfie Challenge is coming up next week with lots of great prizes including a pair of tickets to all four North American I Can Do It’s and a cruise to Alaska with yours truly.
Have a fabulous holiday season, my friends!!
Pam Grout is the author of 17 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.
40 Responses
Now, that’s the NEWS we need to be reading each day!! Blessings…
I know!! So glad this other conversation is going on.
Awesome Pam! Thank you for that renewed
perspective!
I try to start with a renewed perspective each morning. Gotta get out of the echo chamber of fear.
Thanks for all the good news.
You’re welcome. I’m sure I could easily have listed 222 (my favorite number) pieces of good news, but I’m out enjoying the holidays!!
A sweet little boy at The Sprint store kindly handed me the wad if bills that I absent-mindedly dropped out of my purse yesterday amidst the mobile-mayhem. I got to hand him one of my #spreadlovingkindness notes with $5 attached to it! Love receiving and spreading good cheer.
So cute! I’ll bet you made his day.
Your rock Pam, giving your books out for Christmas Presents… Merry Christmas
Thanks for thinking of my books as Christmas gifts. Hope Santa’s elves stick a few in his sleigh.
Made me cry, thanks~
I trust they were tears of joy!
Oh m’gosh! Reading that, my heart and spirit are flying high! Thank you, Pam! Wishing a blessed holiday season to you and yours.
May we all have a blessed holiday season. And so glad to hear your heart and spirit are flying. Who needs a pilot, right?
Dear Pam,
I love you <3
Love you, too!!!
More, more, more! I always love your posts, but anytime somebody puts a whole bunch of good news in one place? I’m in! Merry Christmas
A whole bunch of good news is always happening in my neighborhood.
22 reasons or 21? Either way, great list. Thank you.
Thanks, Nim. I counted the first one, about the Secret Santa, in my 22.
Thank you! I have committed to a daily gratitude journal and you have just given me 20+ more things to be grateful for!!
The list is endless. Great idea about the daily journal.
Ps. How is it possible that you don’t millions of joy followers?
Awww, thanks, Deisi!
Hey Pam, Have an Aaaawwwesome festive season, and even greater 2015. Love your posts…
Hi Pam. Perhaps a few more to add: 1. Scientist have discovered that if a single layer of everyday compost is applied to only 5% of the land in California, that it would capture a year’s worth of greenhouse gases (global warming) from the state’s entire farm and forestry industries. 2. The state of Utah has given away apartments, no strings attached, to more than 2000 homeless people over the past 8 years. The state is on-track to eradicate homelessness by next year (2015). 3. Gunderson Health Systems with clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, and more, with 6000+ workers in 19 counties in
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota now produces more energy from renewable resources than it consumes (the dream for all American organizations). Thanks for your posts. Bob Hennkens
Bob, these are fabulous. Thanks for sharing. I’m especially pumped about the end of homelessness in Utah.
Pam,
Thanks so much for your posts. I save them all and they quite literally make my day.
All the Avery Best to you during the Holiday Season and in 2015.
Thanks again.
Sent from my iPad
>
Comments like yours make MY day. Thanks man!
Reblogged this on Spirit In Action and commented:
Thank you Pam! I have noticed more and more people “paying it forward” every year. It’s easy to see the big problems and think we are just individuals-what difference can our actions make? But society is made of nothing but individuals-even when we gather into groups. A tsunami often looks like very little-a few inches high ripple crossing the vast surface of the sea. But when it reaches land it’s depth and power become much more noticeable. 🙂
Great analogy! Thanks for sharing!
Happy Holidays! You are a source of inspiration!
So are you, Darlene! Thanks for noticing.
GOD BLESS YOU FOR ALL YOU DO. I SO LOOK FORWARD TO EVERY MESSAGE YOU GIVE. MAY YOU BE BLESSED AS MUCH AS YOU BLESS OTHERS!!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU, SHIRLEY CARTER!!
I came into work on my day off and gave my client a much needed massage.
I am literally in tears right now! These beautiful stories just LIGHT up my life! THey give me more than HOPE! They give me INSPIRATION and PURPOSE and PASSION! I am just so grateful for this human experience and the connection we have to manifest peace as a Whole! It really is as simple as being reminded of these such spirits that lifts mine to another energetic level!
I got Tony Robbins new book, “Money”, for free (did pay for shipping) AND it arrived Christmas eve–felt like a gift from the gods! Love your blog and books, keep them coming!
As always, your posts make my day! Thank you for everything!