It was after 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve, but you wouldn’t know it from our house. My twin sister, Barbara, and I pressed our noses up to the big picture window in the living room, searching the Detroit streets for our father’s ’39 Chevy.

“Mom and Dad have got to be home soon,” Barbara said.

“Sure they will,” I said. “They’ll bring the tree, I bet. Then we can decorate. Maybe they got held up in traffic. Or something happened with the car.”

I didn’t look Barbara in the eye when I said it. We were only 10, but this wasn’t the first time we’d been left alone at night, anxiously waiting for our parents. They weren’t stuck in traffic. This late on Christmas Eve the streets were empty. Our parents were surely in a bar somewhere, drinking, not even thinking about us. But they couldn’t forget us completely on Christmas Eve, could they? Of course they could, I answered myself. They’d let us down so many times before. Why believe in them now? Why believe in anything?

We waited and waited, but Mom and Dad didn’t come home. “I’m going to bed,” I said finally, turning from the window. “There’s nothing to wait for.”

Barbara grabbed my arm. “Let’s hang up our stockings,” she said. “We can do that, at least.”

We rummaged around in Dad’s dresser and pulled out his largest pair of socks. They looked sad hanging on the mantel. Sad like Barbara and me. “Tomorrow everything will look like Christmas,” Barbara said dreamily. “When we wake up there will be lights and a tree, presents…”

“And Jimmy!” I said, feeling joyful for the first time that night. “He’ll come early in the morning and be here all day!”

Jimmy was our older brother and the one thing I could always believe in. Even when he got married and moved out of the city, Jimmy was always there when we needed him, with his big smile and even bigger laugh. He made sure Barbara and I had everything we needed for school. He brought groceries by if Mom and Dad forgot to shop. He took us to the doctor if we got sick and stayed with us when our parents left us alone for long stretches. That’s what I would put faith in this Christmas. Jimmy. He’d never let me down.

“When he comes in the door,” I said as we climbed into our beds, “he’ll say ‘Ho ho ho!’ like Santa.”

Jimmy will make it feel like Christmas, I thought as I drifted off to sleep. I don’t need anything else.

A loud noise woke me up. “What is it?” I whispered in the dark. The clock showed it was a little after midnight. A long way from Christmas morning.

“The front door just slammed,” said Barbara. “Mom and Dad are home!”

Loud, hysterical sobs rang through the house. “How could you let this happen?” Mom screamed.

“How could I let it happen?” Dad yelled back. “It’s not my fault!”

Barbara and I clung to each other as the yelling continued. A few minutes later footsteps stumbled up the stairs. Our bedroom door burst open and Mom turned on the light. Her face was streaked with tears. Her hair was disheveled. “We have something to tell you,” she announced, her words slurred. “There will be no Christmas in this house tomorrow. Just stay in bed.”

Dad pushed his way in beside her. “I picked up your gifts from layaway on the way home from work,” he said. “I got them right on time. Your mom and I were visiting friends.”

I squeezed Barbara’s hand. We both knew what <em>that</em> meant.&nbsp;

“Someone broke into the car and stole everything!” Dad said. “Even the tree tied to the roof! Just took it in the street! Of all the low-down, dirty…”

Dad let loose a tirade. I felt like I might be sick. It was a relief when they shut our door and continued their argument in their own room. Barbara and I clung to each other. Even though it was after midnight, Mom called up Jimmy and told him the story. I could hear every word through our bedroom door. How I longed to run to the phone myself, to hear Jimmy’s voice, imagine his kind smile as he found a way to make things better. He was the one person we could count on. But even Jimmy couldn’t fix this. How could he find all that stuff?

“So forget about Christmas this year,” Mom finished up on the phone. “It’s canceled. And one other thing:&nbsp;I’m leaving your father!”

“Mom’s leaving?” Barbara said.&nbsp;

“What’s going to happen to us?” I whispered. “Where will we live?”

A moment ago no Christmas seemed like the worst thing in the world. Now we were losing our family too. Jimmy couldn’t fix this either. I pulled the covers over my head. There was nothing to go downstairs for. I thought about praying to God and telling him I didn’t need any presents or decorations or Christmas tree. That I just wanted my family back. But God was just another thing I couldn’t believe in.&nbsp;The next morning I woke up early. Barbara was already sitting up.&nbsp;

“We’re not supposed to get out of bed,” I mumbled, pulling the covers back over my head.

“Well, I am,” Barbara said. She climbed out of bed and put on her slippers. “I’m going downstairs.”

“There’s no Christmas down there,” I reminded her, but I pulled on my robe and followed. The house was so quiet, every creak of the staircase echoed off the walls. Mom and Dad were fast asleep in their room. Barbara and I crept to the bottom of the stairs, into the living room and then she grabbed my hand. “Look!” said Barbara.

There, in front of the picture window we’d stared out for so long the night before, stood a magnificent Christmas tree. Big glass balls hung from its branches and underneath were dozens of brightly wrapped packages. Even the old socks on the mantel were stuffed with fruit. It was like a dream.

“Do you see what I see?” I breathed. Maybe I was dreaming.

“Come on!” she said.

We rushed up the stairs into our parents’ room. “You were wrong!” Barbara yelled, jumping onto the bed. “We are having Christmas! Come and look! Hurry!”

Mom and Dad stumbled down the stairs, and stopped short when they saw the Christmas lights. One look at their faces proved they hadn’t provided any of this. But then who did?&nbsp;

Barbara ripped the paper off the biggest box. “It’s a farm set!” she shouted. “Look, animals and everything.”

I went for a big red package with my name on it. Funny, none of the presents were wrapped like the way they usually were at Christmas—haphazardly. Like someone had done it as an afterthought. These presents were so perfect, I almost hated to tear the paper. But I did! “I got a doll house!”&nbsp;

“It’s beautiful, Anne,” said Mom. Her voice was different. Softer. She was truly amazed by the scene around us. She was sitting beside Dad on the couch. She reached for his hand!

Usually, being twins, Barbara and I got identical gifts. This year we didn’t get a single present the same. More proof that nothing about these gifts was ordinary. They were special in every way.

As wonderful as the gifts were, they were all forgotten when we heard Jimmy at the front door. “Ho ho ho!” he called, just like we knew he would. Barbara and I pulled him into the living room and showed him all the presents.&nbsp;

Jimmy looked at my parents in surprise. “I thought…?”

“We don’t know how any of this happened,” Mom said. She moved closer to Dad, and he put his arm around her. “How could all these things just appear?” Dad said. “It’s impossible.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Jimmy said, with that chuckle I loved so well. “Christmas is a time for miracles. That’s your explanation.”

I thought. I didn’t believe in miracles. But what other explanation was there? Maybe God really did send angels to bring us our Christmas and answer the prayer I’d been afraid to make. Maybe there were more things in the world I could believe in. Mom didn’t leave Dad that day—or ever. Together, the two of them got help for their drinking problem. Somehow that Christmas miracle was the push they needed.

In the many years since, I’ve retold the story to my children and grandchildren. I never could figure out any other explanation for all those decorations and presents. “If Mom and Dad didn’t do it, how did it happen?” I said to Jimmy finally during a visit.&nbsp;

He chuckled. His face was lined now with age, and he was not in the best of health, but he still had the same smile and the same laugh. “I guess I can tell you now,” he said. “When Mom called me that night and told me what happened, I knew I had to do something,” he said. “So I called some friends. I still remember going door-to-door in the middle of the night collecting decorations and presents people had to spare. We even found a leftover tree in a vacant lot. Once we had everything I drove to the house. I pried open the basement window, and my friends and I squeezed in. It was just before dawn when we slipped out again. I only wish I could have been there to see your faces when you came downstairs!”

I had the answer to the mystery after all those years. “But we never thanked all those people. Why didn’t you tell us it was you?” I asked, but I realized I already knew the answer. I had always believed in Jimmy, but Jimmy wanted me to see there was something more to believe in. Jimmy gave us our Christmas, but God gave us our miracle.&nbsp;

Sometimes our problems—financial and otherwise—stem from our own bad judgment. A young man came to me quite dejected and depressed. He kept asking himself: “Why did I do it?” What’s wrong with me? I had the opportunity of a lifetime and I blew it!”

This 29-year-old man had been fired from a good position with a prestigious firm because, he said, he had made a serious mistake. Although it seems strange that a company would discharge someone for one blunder, I remembered the words of a prominent businesswoman, who had said to me: “He who stumbles twice on the same stone deserves to break his own neck.” In other words, in her opinion, a person should be allowed one mistake, but not two.

Aren’t we blessed that God allows us so many more slip-ups! In that spirit, here are three suggestions to help you deal with the times you slip up.

1. Learn from Your Mistakes

Every mistake has a positive side and so we can see errors in judgment and mistakes as developmental experiences, something that can help us grow. In fact, it’s partly through trial and error that we develop judgment and mature.

<p>A mistake is not something to be ashamed of. It’s a great teacher. A West Coast minister, a friend of mine, told me about a 19-year-old boy who came to see him. The boy sat with his head in his hands. He then blurted out: “For God’s sake, pastor, help me. I smoked pot for months, and now I’m on crack. I’m all messed up inside. I know I’ve made a terrible mistake. But if I can only get myself straightened out, I’ll never go back to doing drugs again.” The pastor, being a wise man, showed the boy love, respect and esteem. He also referred the boy to doctors who could help him overcome his chemical dependency. “And,” he told this boy, “through faith in God, you can create a chemistry within you that will give you a ‘high’ unlike any drug known to man. Then you will truly ‘come alive’.”

2. Replace Error with Truth

There’s always the temptation to repeat mistakes because so often they stem from an inner tendency of ours. This is an issue we must all understand and address. If our mental or spiritual condition is not right, we can become error prone. The correction for this is, of course, truth.

Have you developed the ability to distinguish between what is error and what is truth? We may try to make error into truth by rationalization, but that’s not possible. The issue is whether you are willing to ask yourself honestly: What will dominate me, truth or error?

3. Eliminate the Cause

We, in greater or lesser degrees, destroy ourselves to the extent that error dominates us. Here’s an exercise that can help us face up to where we are error-prone in our lives.

Take a sheet of paper and write down the really serious mistakes that you’ve made in your lifetime. Now ask yourself: How can you eliminate weaknesses?

A man once told me, “I’ve had a wonderful spiritual experience that I’d like to tell you about.” I initially thought that the man was going to tell me that he was a converted drunk or thief, or that he’d been running around with someone else’s wife and had stopped. But this man’s difficulty was different.

“I was what you’d call a good man,” he said. “I didn’t lie; I didn’t get drunk; I didn’t do immoral things. But, I was just plain dumb. I did the wrong thing so many times, that I felt hopeless and depressed.” The man then said that he had read in my books that anybody can change just about anything in his life, if he’ll turn his life over to God.

Positive Affirmation

Fill your mind with truth, and truth will cast out error.

The Swine Flu is not the only thing you catch at work. Turns out you are just as likely to catch someone’s bad mood and negative attitude.

Yes, the latest research demonstrates what we’ve all known to be true, that emotions are contagious. Researchers call them emotional contagions and they impact our work environments, productivity, teamwork, service and performance in significant and profound ways.

As we know all too well, one negative employee can pollute an entire team and create a toxic work environment. One negative leader can make work miserable for his/her team. An employee in a bad mood can turn off and turn away countless customers.

Complaining can act like a cancer and spread throughout the entire organization and eventually destroy your vision and goals. And pervasive negative attitudes can sabotage the morale and performance of teams with great talent and potential.

That’s the bad news… but there’s also good news.

Positive emotions are just as contagious as negative emotions. One positive leader can rally a group of willing people to accomplish amazing things. One Chief Energy Officer who sits at the welcome desk can positively infect every person who walks in your business/school/workplace. One positive team member can slowly but surely improve the mood and morale of her team. And pervasive positive attitudes and emotions at work can fuel the morale and performance of your organization.

Emotional contagions are the reason why when I speak to businesses, schools and sports teams I say that everyone in the organization contributes to its culture.

You are not just a creation of your culture but rather you are creating it every day through your thoughts, beliefs and actions. What you think matters. How you feel matters. And the energy you share with others, whether it’s positive or negative, really matters.

You can be negatively contagious or positively contagious. You can be a germ and attack your organization’s immune system or you can act like a dose of Vitamin C and strengthen it.

So the next time you head into work with a bad mood you might want to stop before you walk in the door and consider what your boss would say if you had the Swine Flu. She would tell you to stay home until you are healthy and not contagious.

And in that moment, as you stand at the door you have a choice: You can go home so you don’t infect anyone with your bad mood, or you can choose to get healthy right there, change your attitude, and decide to be positively contagious.

You are not an island unto yourself. You are forever contagious and you and your emotions impact the world around you.

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I have a confession. Despite the fact that I work to develop positive leaders, schools and teams, I’m not naturally a positive person.

The research says it’s not my fault. Turns out some people are born with a more positive disposition while others are born with more of a negative disposition.

But there is hope. The latest research in neuroscience and positive psychology demonstrates that we can mold our brains and ourselves to be more positive, which is great news for me and my children.

For the past eight years I’ve researched and practiced countless strategies to enhance positivity. I’ve worked really hard at becoming more positive which I guess is why I’ve become such a good teacher. I’ve seen the fruits of these efforts in my life and in the people I’ve taught—most importantly my own children. I’ve seen how simple strategies and daily rituals can make a tremendous impact on their mindset, belief system and outlook on life.

I believe that positive kids become positive adults and as parents we can play a significant role in shaping our children’s perspective and mindset. In this spirit I want to share with you several tips to develop positive kids.

1. Success of the Day
Each night before bed, at dinner or while taking an after-dinner walk ask your children their success of the day. The success could be a great conversation, an accomplishment at school, something they are proud of, a situation where they helped someone, etc.

The important thing is to help them focus on accomplishments instead of failures. When we help our children expect success, look for success, and celebrate success they find more success and gain more confidence. Of course they need to learn from their mistakes and failures, but let’s help them to not dwell on them.

2. Bedtime Prayer
A ritual such as this provides your children with a foundation of peace, security, and confidence that gives them the strength to take on the daily challenges of being a child.

3. Implement the No Complaining Rule
It’s a simple rule that says you’re not allowed to complain unless you identify one or two possible solutions to your complaint. This empowers children to become a driver of their bus instead of being a passenger griping on the bus.

They also learn to use complaints as a catalyst for positive change and positive action. Visit NoComplainingRule.com.

4. Teach them the Positive Shark Formula, E + P = 0
This is from my latest book, The formula reveals that we can’t control the (E) Events in our life. But we can control our (P) Positive Response to these events and our response determines the (O) outcome.

This formula helps children develop a strong locus of control which is a perspective that through their beliefs and actions they have an influence on their life.

They come to believe that they are not a victim of circumstance but rather a hero in their own inspirational tale and that they can turn their challenges into opportunities and transform bad events into good outcomes. This helps them stay optimistic and believe that their best days are ahead of them, not behind them.

5. Feel Blessed instead of Stressed
As parents we need to realize that children, like adults, deal with a lot of stress…and stress is the enemy of positivity. Well, the great news is that when you are feeling blessed you can’t be stressed.

The research says we can’t be stressed and thankful at the same time. Thus, a simple ritual is to help your children identify 3 things they are thankful for each day.

You can create a gratitude journal together or you can encourage them to write these blessings on their blog, diary or simply talk about them at dinner. And anytime they are feeling stressed you can encourage them to recall something they are thankful for.

I encourage you to think of your child’s mind like a garden. Each day you want to help them weed their negative thoughts and plant positive thoughts.

One day of weeding and planting won’t do much. However, if you practice these strategies each day, over a week, a month, a year, a lifetime, the garden grows more healthy and vibrant.

Nurture your child. Take time to coach them and nourish them with lots of love and positive energy and you shall see the fruits of your efforts.

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My memories of Christmas around the turn of the century in the town of Lynchburg, Ohio, are still crystal clear. My father used to boost me up so I could crank my grandmother’s doorbell, and everybody inside came running. I can smell the warm tallow of lighted candles on the tree and the aroma of homemade candy bubbling in a pot on the wood stove. It was a thrill to wake up and find an orange in my stocking, and I’ll never forget how excited I was the year I got a banana! We were a country preacher’s family, and we were poor. But we had a mighty good time.

One year my brother Bob and I dreamed of getting a bicycle. For months we haunted the stores looking at wheels and argued long about the color. At last we agreed: It had to be red.

Christmas morning we crept downstairs. There were small gifts under the tree—but no bicycle. Then Mother said to us, “Let’s go down to the railroad station. Maybe Santa Claus forgot something, and perhaps it will come on the morning train.”

So down we went to the old B&O station to meet the train. The door of the baggage car rolled open, and there it was—a bicycle with a light on the front. It was secondhand, and we boys had to share it, but it was ours and it was red! Later I learned that Mother had made her threadbare coat last yet another season so we might have our dreamed-of bicycle.

When I was seven or so, we lived in Cincinnati, close to the tracks where the streetcars screeched around corners. A special car came along to grease the rails, and we children, I’m sorry to say, made fun of the grimy old guy who ran it. “Greasy Dick,” we shouted when he came by. “Hey, Greasy Dick!”

One day right before Christmas my father asked me to come along on one of his hospital calls. “Someone you will recognize isn’t feeling well,” he said. Propped up in a bed was Greasy Dick! My father introduced him by his real name, just as he would the finest gentleman, and when he shook my hand, it didn’t feel greasy at all. “I hope you grow up to be a fine man like your father,” he exclaimed. My father gave a prayer and patted his shoulder. When we left, my father said, “Remember, Norman, he’s not Greasy Dick; he’s a friend of ours. And he’s a child of God.”

As I grew up, I came to appreciate what a precious gift Dad had given to me. He’d taught me to look for the good in people, always. It was a Christmas present that affected my whole life, and one I’ve always prayed I might pass on to others.

When I became a pastor myself, I started out as the minister of a small church in Brooklyn; and since I was single, the ladies were always feeding me. One Christmas Eve I went to the home of some church members for dinner. On the door of the house across the street were a pair of wreaths—a traditional Christmas wreath and a somber funeral wreath. I had a feeling I should see if I could help, but I didn’t want to go anywhere if I wasn’t wanted, so I hesitated before deciding what to do. Finally I went and knocked, and when a man came to the door, I explained who I was. The man had tears in his eyes. “Come in,” he said.

Inside the front room was a casket containing the body of a girl who couldn’t have been older than four. “My wife is upstairs with our son,” the man said. “Please go and talk to her.” I went with trepidation. What could I do? What could I say? I was just a new, young minister and hadn’t had much experience with family tragedies.

Upstairs I found a lovely woman and a boy. As I fumbled around for what to say the woman spoke up. “God gave us our little girl,” she said, “and then took her home.”

She went on to tell me that God understood her grief because he had lost his son. We prayed together, and later on, that family became members of my church. I’d gone in anxious and unsure about how to comfort them, and they’d ended up comforting me. Ever since, I’ve been amazed by the ways in which we interact to help and heal one another.

Once, a young lady from Switzerland, Ursula, lived with our family in New York City. As Christmas approached she wondered what she could give us in gratitude.

She went to a children’s shop, bought a beautiful baby dress and had it gift wrapped. Then she approached one of the Salvation Army people on a corner. “Sir,” she said, “I have a dress for a poor baby. Do you know of one?”

“More than one, I am afraid,” he said.

Together they hailed a cab and the Salvation Army man gave an address uptown. When the taxi pulled up in front of a rundown tenement, the Salvation Army officer took in the package. “Say it is from someone who has been blessed and wants to pass those blessings on,” Ursula told him.

When the cab driver finally delivered Ursula back to our home, he told her there was no charge. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve been more than paid for this.” Ursula told us about her present on Christmas morning. It was one of the nicest we ever got.

Start each day with encouragement for your soul. Order Mornings with Jesus 2019

After our three children grew up and had families of their own, there came a time when my wife, Ruth, and I found ourselves in London for the holidays. We were determined to have a Charles Dickens adventure. On Christmas Eve we had a hearty dinner and then went walking, our footsteps echoing in the deserted streets. It was gloomy going, and just about the time it seemed our Christmas spirits might never get off the ground, we heard singing from far away.

As we walked along, the sound of trumpeting brass and the chorus of jubilant voices got louder and louder. “O Come, All Ye Faithful!” “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear!” We heard them all. As we neared Trafalgar Square, we could see it was packed with thousands of people. A Salvation Army band was playing on a platform. It was bitter cold, but those people were having the time of their lives, singing “Joy to the World” at the top of their lungs.

There we were, so many miles from home, and yet right at home because of the spirit that surrounded us. We felt the same way years later when we took all our children and grandchildren on a trip to Africa, and sat outside our tent under glittering stars as we read the story of the nativity from the Bible.

There’s a story that appeared in Guideposts magazine that’s always meant a lot to Ruth and me. The story was about an African boy who gave his missionary teacher an unusually beautiful seashell as a Christmas gift. The boy had walked a great distance, over rough terrain, to the only place on the coast where these particular shells could be found.

The teacher was touched. “You’ve traveled so far to bring me such a wonderful present,” she said. The boy looked puzzled, then his eyes widened with excitement. “Oh, teacher,” he explained, “long walk part of gift.”

Sure, there have been plenty of times over the years when all the pre-holiday shopping and sermon writing and schedule arranging seemed to be too much, and my wife, Ruth, and I have been tempted to throw up our hands and say, “It’s just not worth the effort!” But then we’ve looked at each other and said, “Long walk part of gift.” And we’ve laughed and gotten back to work.

These stories are part of a golden thread that weaves us all together, strengthening us for the years ahead. Christmas is the ongoing affirmation of the greatest ideals and truth that anybody ever came up with. People feel reborn, invigorated, whole. Over and over, through the ages it goes.

Backward glances don’t make me nostalgic and sad—not at all. They give me a burst of excitement for going forward. And they add to the richness of celebrating Christmas now.

Read more stories about positive thinking!

Update: Ochs went back to Fort Hays State University and completed a master’s degree in liberal studies.

Talk about continuing education. Kansas great-grandmother Nola Ochs, the world’s oldest college graduate at age 95, is now pursuing a master’s degree.

Marriage and raising four boys on a farm kept her busy until the 1970s, when her husband, Vernon, passed away, and her youngest left the nest. “I wanted to get off the farm and do something for pleasure,” says Nola. So she took tennis lessons. Then a series of agribusiness marketing courses because, she says, “My boys were running the farm but we didn’t know how to market.” Her appetite for learning whetted, she signed up for whatever courses sounded interesting—including geography, genealogy, composition. “They will judge my generation by what we write, so I wanted to write well,” Nola reasons.

She discovered a real passion for history, a zeal enjoyed by her professors and fellow students at Fort Hays State University, who got to hear Nola’s firsthand experiences of events they’d only read about. She told the story of her family riding their team of horses into town. Nola, then just a young girl, was sure her father was going to leave for World War I (he didn’t) and wondered how her mother would be able to get the wagon back home. She told the class about cattle drives, the storms of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, the radio announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor, about how her father’s farmer status kept him out of World War II as well.

To cut down on travel to and from class, Nola moved off the farm and got an apartment on campus, furnishing it with a computer. Not one to shy away from new technology, she took a class, of course, on how to use it.

“My oldest son was skeptical, but when he saw how many friends I had he didn’t worry for long,” says Nola. Faculty and students were friendly and welcoming. Among her closest study buddies? Her 21-year-old granddaughter Alexandra, who graduated with her last May.

Life for the senior citizen college grad has been anything but mellow: a celebratory cruise, responding to well-wishers from all over the world, an appearance on The Tonight Show.

“Overall my enthusiasm comes from believing that what I do is helping the college and helping our state,” says Nola. “Just knowing that I am encouraging people, that’s what gives me all my energy.”

Nola’s Tips
Set a date to begin. We talk about things but we don’t do them.

Let people help you. They really do want to help!

Search your inner being for what you like to do. Everyone has something that they didn’t think there was time for. But it’s possible if you begin.

Inspirational quotes. I love them, don’t you? They’re a quick hit of positivity, a perfect pick-me-up on a busy day … which is every day, now that the holidays are here.

When I don’t have time to sit down and savor a full-length inspiring story, I turn to the quote of the day on our homepage or to The Up Side in Guideposts magazine, where we feature current quotes from positive thinkers.

I love handmade things too, and while I was searching for gifts for the people on my holiday list, I came across some inspired interpretations of inspirational quotes by artists and crafters. I really like the idea of putting a favorite quote someplace where you can see it—and be inspired by it—on a daily basis.

Check ’em out. It’s probably too late to get these in time for Christmas or Hanukkah, but they would make a lovely gift for a friend (or for yourself) in the new year.

“Yours is the earth and everything in it.” This verse from Psalm 89 is the inspiration behind Yours is the Earth, a new line of products by artists and foodies Allie Peach and Jamie Wyckoff. The calligraphy and the plummy color in this print are just delicious.

“Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” From the Etsy shop Of the Fountain, whose owner, Brandy, makes hand-stamped leather tags. The quotes she uses are travel-related (since the tags are meant for bags), but they apply to spiritual journeys too. Wouldn’t this be an excellent reminder to stick with a New Year’s resolution? (Might have to get this tag for my gym bag.)

“You are loved.” A simple yet powerful message. Artist and optimist (how great that she calls herself that!) Shanna Murray’s illustrated decals are just what she says: “happiness for your walls.”

Happiness to you and yours this Christmas! See you in 2012.