This is my first “Retiree’s” Christmas. Without the confines of having to be at an employer’s location I am able to enjoy the greater freedom of attending granddaughters school events and even more time appreciating the effort many folks make in preparing enjoyable web sites around the Christmas theme.

With this post, I want to share some of the web sites that have caught my attention.

From Caroline’s Precious Memories comes the True Meaning of Christmas.

The old man sat in his gas station on a cold Christmas Eve. He hadn’t been anywhere in years since his wife had passed away. He had no decorations, no tree, no lights. It was just another day to him. He didn’t hate Christmas, just couldn’t find a reason to celebrate. There were no children in his life. His wife had gone. !–more–

For a look at The First Christmas Gift visit AndiesIsle.

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In this economy many of us are looking for some kind of employment to supplement our retirement income. Here is a job posting I actually came across on one of the job boards: 

Kringle Enterprises Santa’s Helper Job Overview

Santa’s Helper

Come join the most magical manufacturing, shipping and receiving company ever conceived. Here you’ll build state-of the-art gadgets and old school throwback toys, as well as replace lots and lots of twinkling light bulbs. You may even get to ride shotgun in the sleigh with the Big Guy himself. This position requires an abundance of holiday spirit and general holly-jolliness — there’s no room for Grinches in this workshop! We’re looking for someone who is great with kids, has experience in the toy-making industry and isn’t frightened by hairy, flying mammals.

Responsibilities may include, but are not limited to:

• Reindeer grooming.
• Working closely with homeland security to taste-test cookies and  milk.
• List checking (We operate on a naughty vs. nice grading scale).
• More list checking.
• General sleigh upkeep.
• Accompany Mr. Kringle to shopping malls and perform crowd control on hyperactive and/or frightened children.
• Coal mining (Depends on number of naughty children.)

We hope this won’t come as a surprise, but this is not a real job. However, 10 real-life applicants will be “hired” to receive a one-time-only $100 salary just for filling out and submitting the most entertaining answers to our assessment questions. There are plenty of prizes to go around, so be sure to send this to your friends, even if they’re 6 feet tall and hate snow. 

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The following is an amazing Power Point Slide Show wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I wish I could take credit for authoring this, but I can’t. If anyone knows the creator of this, please let me know so I can give proper credit. The file is large and can take some time to load on your computer. Please be patient. I think you will be pleasantly surprised what you can do in Power Point.  Since Rocking Chair Wisdom believes in interactivity, click on the words Merry Christmas below to enjoy. If you are not familiar with how to run a Powerpoint slide show, send an email to wbrierly@gmail.com and I will send the file to you as an attachment that should open like any other attachment.

Merry Christmas

Tags: Christmas, retiree, retiree Christmas, Rocking Chair Wisdom