MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! WE WISH YOU MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! MAY YOU LIVE THE LIFE BEAUTIFUL! THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE! MAY YOU BE HAPPY! ENJOY ALL THE HAPPINESS IN LIFE BE HEALTHY! ATTAIN PERFECT BODY, MIND AND SOUL BE SUCCESSFUL! REALIZE SUCCESS IN ALL ENDEAVORS MAY YOU BE HAPPY! BE HEALTHY! BE SUCCESSFUL! TODAY, TOMORROW, FOREVER! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! http://www.thelifebeautiful.com/

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

SHORT STORY

Here is a classic love story on the theme of gift and Christmas by a master story teller.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

[O. Henry—William Sydney Porter (1862-1910)]

[Reproduced with acknowledgements and thanks]

NOW YOU GET YOUR GIVE YOURSELF, YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS THE GIFT OF THE MAGI: BE HAPPY!

CHRISTMAS GIFTS IDEAS--SUCCESS

Success contributes a great deal towards happiness and health. It is so because success provides a mental state of satisfaction and the physical means to happiness; this mental state and physical means also contribute towards good health. Of course, it is not necessary that all successful men and women are in good health. The rat race for success is often full of stress and indigestion! Still, looking at the opposite face of the coin, it becomes evident that it is very difficult to maintain good health and happiness when one is unsuccessful in life.

As success is the main reason why we make New Year Resolutions in the first place, and Christmas is immediately followed by New Year, it may be a good idea to give the gift of success on this Christmas to yourself and others.

Before we proceed further, we my like to know the fundamentals of Success:

1.Have a Do or Die Desire to Be Successful!: For Success it is very essential that you have a do or dies desire for success.  Decide this moment to be successful in all circumstances.  Every morning decide that you will be successful and nothing and nobody would and could spoil your success.

2.Condition Your Mind to Success:  Success comes to those who think in terms of success.  Use affirmations and resolutions to condition your mind to success as if you have already achieved the success.

3.Have a Fixed, Definite, and All-Exclusive Aim of Life:  Without a clear and over-powering air of life nothing is possible to be achieved.  This aim should be like an obsession driving your life like crazy.

4.Plan for Success:  No journey can be successfully completed without a road plan.  Here road plan includes writing down ones aim (s), making resolutions and affirmations, periodically checking ones progress, and sticking to it despite failures.

5.Work Hard:  Nothing can succeed without hard work.  In addition to hard work one should work smart also.  Working smart means going the extra mile, always being one step ahead in knowledge, innovation, and application of latest ideas, and keeping ones mind open.

6.Use Your Time Optimally:  Make a To-Do list according to importance of task.  Dont waste best productive time on routine matters like flipping through newspaper, magazines, and TV channels, checking and replying to routine emails, gossiping, telephoning, etc. 

7.Keep Best Company:   Keep the company of the best of the best.  If you are a writer or scientist surround yourself with the best of them and become member of the best writers or scientists group.  If you are a CEO employ the best available brains.

8.Be Happy! and Be Healthy!:  Happiness and good health are also very essential for success.  Many people with great potential for success leave their   pursuit of success mid-way owing to falling health.  Of course, life is more important than success, but if one follows Be Healthy! Fundamentals of Good Health, he or she will not have to be a failure due to bad health.  Similarly, a person with happy attitude towards life keeps good health and can work better.   He or she is liked by others which also contributes towards success.

9.Stick with it despite Failures:  Success comes after repeated failures.  Sometimes success keeps on awaiting us just a step ahead where we stumble.  It is best to get up a move on. 

10.Meditate and Pray:  Develop the habit of meditation.  Meditation fills the whole being with peace and calm.  If you are religiously minded pray.  Prayer also gives peace and calm and inner strength.

I would recommend following success gifts for this Christmas:

 

Books, Audios, Videos, and MP3: Success depends a great deal on the inner motivation and inspiration. Success is a sort of burning desire, an addictive-possessive passion, and a haunting dream. The fire of this desire are fanned and directed by good inspirational books, audios, videos, and MP3s. Give the gift of these and the recipient will be thankful to you for his (successful) life.

Subliminal and Hypnotic Messages: The latest inspirational and motivational means are subliminal and hypnotic messages which can be had as MP3 downloads. These are the ultimate in inspirational and motivational helps. The best thing with these is that they can be downloaded, from some sites, in MP3 format.

 

Digital Reading Devices: Digital Reading Devices or Electronic Reading Devices are no longer the future of reading. They are the present! A successful person takes his library of reading material with him or her. There are thousands of public domain books which can be freely downloaded. Digital books etc. can also be downloaded to PC, Mobile. iPad, iPhone, Mac, Android, etc.

 

Magazines: A successful person remains up-to-date on issues of general interest and on his subject of business or speciality. He or she, therefore, reads appropriate magazines and newspapers. Subscription to these could be given as a much appreciated gift.

 

Electronic Items: A successful person uses the latest and smartest gadgets to remain on top of the world and ahead of his or her competitors. He or she has, therefore, the latest and slimmest laptop, mobile, and ipod. If your budget permits such gifts could also be given.

Personalized and Home-Made Gifts: Successful persons seem to have everything and sometime it becomes difficult to decide what to give them, especially if one’s budget is tight. In such cases, it is best to give something the value of which is derived from its being personalized or home-made. You may give something very costly to a rich person and it may not be appreciated. But to the same person if you give something on which his or her name is engraved, it may become a proud possession!

 

Jewelry: Well, every woman dies for them. They may be perfect gifts for women and young girls, specially for one’s sweet heart. Nothing can beat a jewellery item. Of course, great care and discernment is needed in the selection of the right item.

 

Golf Set: Successful men blend leisure with business and golf is the game par excellence which successfully allows to do it. It also does not require great physical strength or fitness or contact and impact of other games. Best of all, it gives ample time and opportunity to socialize. Because of these, golf is increasingly becoming a very popular sport and business tool among executives. A golf set, therefore, is one of the choicest gift for successful men and women.

Unsuccessful Men and Women: Success requires hard work and persistence. However, some still don’t succeed despite years of hard work. Some people are successful because of birth or circumstances—the son or daughter of a film star is very likely to land his first role as the hero of a film; the son of a king is very likely to become a king, the son or daughter of a politician can easily inherit his or her parent’s constituency seat, etc. On the other hand, a competent person may only rise up to a certain height depending on where from he or she started the upward journey. Furthermore, some people’s life values may be different. Their definition of success may be different. An artist may prefer to remain poor and also risk not being successful in chosen field as well, than to run after money. So, unsuccessful men and women are not necessarily less deserving. They also deserve some good gifts. So don’t forget them! 

LIVE THE LIFE BEAUTIFUL!
BE HAPPY! BE HEALTHY! BE SUCCESSFUL!
TODAY, TOMORROW, FOREVER!

    

 

 

 

 

ACI Gift Card…

ACI Gift Cards Inc.

ACI Gift Card…