Three Spirits of Christmas

Maybe it isn't every day that Walmart provides vignettes of Christmas.  Or maybe it is.

The first scene was right out of retail hell:  two very pissed-off, red-faced customers chewing out an assistant manager lady in the front aisle.  "We've got money, right here, cash on the barrelhead, and we've waited for over an hour to get waited on to buy that TV!"  Etc...you fill in the blanks. (Over a TV?)

The manager listened to this tirade, offered to help them right away, and of course that didn't satisfy the Spirit of Wrath.  "No!  We're gonna go buy it someplace else!" and stomped off in a huff.

I felt so bad for the manager lady that I went up to her and wished her a very, very sincere Merry Christmas.  (Maybe I should have confronted the Wrath...can't make peace with angry people, maybe affirm the manager though...I don't know.  That bothers me.)  She smiled a bruised smile and said, "It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last."  I guess Wrath is a year-round resident.  Wrath believes that a TV is worth more than a heart, I suppose.

I went about my shopping, and had my usual encounters with people at aisle intersections.  "Oops, sorry, excuse me."

One lady beat me to it, and she didn't waste time with apologies.  She went straight for Blessing:  "Merry Christmas!"  She kind of murmured it, but the eye contact was the real thing.  I crossed her path a couple more times with better collision-avoidance on my part, and realized what she was doing.  She was wishing everyone she met a Merry Christmas.  Just choosing to spread a little Life as she went along.  I hope she ran into the manager lady.  I guess Blessing visits Walmart from time to time.

As I headed out to the parking lot with my cat litter, I met two ladies with three heaping shopping carts.  I smiled; "The country ladies used to load up like that at Piggly Wiggly back when I was bagging groceries."

"We're buying for local shelters."  She mentioned a couple, and I asked who they were working for; it isn't exactly commonplace for people to load up that way and do a shelter delivery run.  (Maybe it should be...hmmm.)  She answered that they were buying on behalf of one of our Florida (US) Congressmen - seems he does this every year.  Looks like maybe Blessing can shop along with Giving at Walmart, too.

Some years ago someone in Huntsville had rolls of stickers printed up that said, "Kindness is Contagious."  The idea was, you take a bunch of stickers with you and offer to stick them on people (like "I Voted Today" stickers) after you'd said or done something kind for them.  I took a dozen on a business trip to Washington, DC and scattered them along the way.  Lots of fun.  And I'll never forget the expression of the gate attendant in Nashville when I said something simple and nice to her, and gave her one.  Looked like it made her day.

Some days you'd give anything for just a little kindness - a glance, a word, a touch.  Here's hoping that you receive the Blessing of God, and that his spirit of Blessing will inhabit you and overflow from you.  After all, kindness really is contagious.  Even in Walmart at Christmas time.  Merry Christmas.