What I Learnt Today

 

 

New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Mark Twain

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” 

W.C. Fields

Professor Richard Wiseman has tracked 5000 people attempting to stick to their New Years Resolutions.

10% succeeded.

What factors were common to those who were successful?

• 1. They broke their goal into a series of smaller steps.
• 2. They told their friends and family what they were trying to achieve.
• 3. They regularly reminded themselves about the benefits of reaching their goal.
• 4. They gave themselves a small reward each time they obtained one of their small steps.
• 5. They mapped out their progress.

 

 

 

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I don’t think New Year’s resolutions can’t technically be expected to begin on New Year’s Day, don’t you?  Since, because it’s an extension of New Year’s Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system.  Also dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover.  I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.

 

Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones Diary

 

Last year my resolution was to keep a blog of What I Learnt Each Day.

WILT had 350 posts in 2012!

Thanks for your comments and support.

What is your resolution for 2012?

Lifehacker has these “Top Ten Easy to Keep Recommendations“

• 10. Create and Stick to a Realistic Budget
• 9. Get a Better Education
• 8. Make New Friends
• 7. Keep Your Home Cleaner
• 6. Start Working Out
• 5. Learn a New Skill
• 4. Get That Promotion (or New Job)
• 3. Reboot Your Sleep Cycle
• 2.Eat Healthier
• 1.Back Up Your Data

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

However, there are plenty of tips on how to achieve each of these recommendations on the LifeHacker site.

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better man.”

Benjamin Franklin

Is there a difference between a goal and a resolution?

Blogger Gretchin Rubin spent a year “test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Plutarch, Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, St. Thérèse, the Dalai Lama, Oprah, Martin Seligman…I cover it all.”. As part of ‘The Happiness Project” she started a daily blog.

She makes this distinction.

“You hit a goal, you achieve a goal. You keep a resolution.

I think that some objectives are better characterized as resolutions, others, as goals.

“Run in a marathon” or “Become fluent in Spanish” is a good goal. It’s specific. It’s easy to tell when it has been achieved. Once you’ve done it, you’ve done it!

“Eat more vegetables” or “Stop gossiping,” or “Exercise” is better cast as a resolution. You won’t wake up one morning and find that you’ve achieved it. It’s something that you have to resolve to do, every day, forever. You’ll never be done with it.

But it can be easy to get discouraged when you’re trying to hit a goal. What if it takes longer than you expected? What if it’s harder than you expected? And what happens once you’ve reached your goal? Say you’ve run the marathon. What now – do you stop exercising? Do you set a new goal?

With resolutions, the expectations are different. Each day, I try to live up to my resolutions. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity. I never expect to be done with my resolutions, so I don’t get discouraged when they stay challenging. Which they do.”

Good luck with your resolutions in 2012.

 

 

 

 

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“Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;

Brightly shone the moon that night, tho’ the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel.”

John Mason Neale, 1853

 

Why is Boxing Day called Boxing Day?

Good question.

Although the day after Christmas has been as an official holiday in the United Kingdom (and most of Australia) since 1871, no one is sure why it is called Boxing Day.

What I thought I knew about this turned out to be a myth. It is not because it is the day when brothers test out their new boxing gloves on each other, nor because it is the day when we box up our decorations and presents.

Dccember 26th is St Stephen’s Day – St Stephen was one of the first century martyrs. It has been a tradition since medieval times to give to the the poor on the feast day of St Stephen. (Good King Wenceslas helped the poor man gathering winter fuel about the year 1000).

There are two major theories about the use of the term Boxing Day for December 26th

The ‘Poor Box’ Theory

“King Wenceslas didn’t start Boxing Day, but the Church of England might have. During Advent, Anglican parishes displayed a box into which churchgoers put their monetary donations. On the day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and their contents distributed among the poor, thus giving rise to the term Boxing Day. Maybe.” <a href=" http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868711,00.html#ixzz1hb2I0S5D“>Time Magazine

 

The ‘Gift Box’ Theory

Did you give your servants the day off yesterday. Of course not. However, to encourage them to work hard on Christmas Day, it is traditional to give them one day leave for Boxing Day. To show your generosity, it is traditional give them a box of goodies to take home to their familites.Hence, Boxing Day.

 

Which theory do of believe is correct? Or do you have another explanation?

Whatever the origin, Boxing Day is a traditional day of rest.

In more recent days, it is also the first day of the post-Christmas sales. Boxing Day is not celebrated in the USA – the day after Thansksgiving fills this role.

Sport and Boxing Day

In Australia, the major activity on Boxing Day is watching sport. 

The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race has started at 1pm on December 26th since the first race in 1945. Therefore, this year will be the 66th race.

The ‘traditional’ Boxing Day Test has been a fixture at the MCG only since 1980. It is in fact more traditional for  the NSW vs Victoria Sheffiled Shield Match to be held over Christmas, much to the annoyance of the players from NSW who had to miss the festivities at home every year.

But undoubtably the major sporting event that takes place in Australia is the annual race meeting at Tangmalangaloo. This event is immortalized in this poem by Narrandera’s favourite parish priest, Fr Patrick Joseph Hartigan (John O’Brien)

Tangmalangaloo

The bishop sat in lordly state and purple cap sublime,

And galvanized the old bush church at Confirmation time.

And all the kids were mustered up from fifty miles around,

With Sunday clothes, and staring eyes, and ignorance profound.

Now was it fate, or was it grace, whereby they yarded too

An overgrown two-storey lad from Tangmalangaloo?

 

A hefty son of virgin soil, where nature has her fling,

And grows the trefoil three feet high and mats it in the spring;

Where mighty hills uplift their heads to pierce the welkin’s rim,

And trees sprout up a hundred feet before they shoot a limb;

There everything is big and grand, and men are giants too –

But Christian Knowledge wilts, alas, at Tangmalangaloo.

 

The bishop summed the youngsters up, as bishops only can;

He cast a searching glance around, then fixed upon his man.

But glum and dumb and undismayed through every bout he sat;

He seemed to think that he was there, but wasn’t sure of that.

The bishop gave a scornful look, as bishops sometimes do,

And glared right through the pagan in from Tangmalangaloo.

 

“Come, tell me, boy,” his lordship said in crushing tones severe,

“Come, tell me why is Christmas Day the greatest of the year?

“How is it that around the world we celebrate that day

“And send a name upon a card to those who’re far away?

“Why is it wandering ones return with smiles and greetings, too?”

A squall of knowledge hit the lad from Tangmalangaloo.

 

He gave a lurch which set a-shake the vases on the shelf,

He knocked the benches all askew, up-ending of himself.

And so, how pleased his lordship was, and how he smiled to say,

“That’s good, my boy.  Come, tell me now; and what is Christmas Day?”

The ready answer bared a fact no bishop ever knew –

“It’s the day before the races out at Tangmalangaloo.

 

 

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For Rosi and I, Christmas wasn’t Christmas without Rudolph or Frosty on TV .

1000 Awesome Things also thinks its Awesome to be flipping through the TV channels and come across an old favourite christmas special.

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, a stop motion classic, came out in 1964.

The character Rudolph was created in 1939. The story, written by Robert May, was given away as a colouring book by a large department store chain. His brother-in-law wrote a song about the red nosed reindeer, and Gene Autrey sold 2.5 million copies in 1949. Until the 1980s it was the second biggest song of all time.

The song the Little Drummer Boy was written in 1941, and popularised by the Von Trapp family singers (The Sound of Music) in 1955. The stop motion Christmas story was made in1968,

The song Frosty the Snowman was written to follow up on the success of theRudolph song for Gene Autry, and was a hit the following Xmas (1950). The stop motion Christmas special was made in 1969

and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, made in 1970, was also based on a Xmas song (1934)

Maybe you preferred Peanuts?

Or a Very Brady Christmas?

What is your favourite Christmas special?

Happy Christmas to all!

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